


I'll Let You Down

by mousefrnk



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, M/M, barista!Frank, professor!gerard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2018-09-23 17:09:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9667508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousefrnk/pseuds/mousefrnk
Summary: Gerard is an ancient runes professor, completely invested in his research at the local university. He has a routine: wake up early, waste the entire head start he's got, barely make the shuttle to campus. The jerk barista filling in at his favorite campus coffee spot is definitely not part of that routine.





	1. Maybe I'm A Mess

**Author's Note:**

> Alright y'all -- this is my very first shot at writing fanfic, but I had so much inspiration, I absolutely had to do it. I know, I know, I'm late _af_ to this game, but like my Gerard, I'll probably be late to my own funeral. 
> 
> Major, major thanks to my betas, the lovely [Mackenzie](http://awsugar.tumblr.com/) and the brilliant [Catherine](http://softfrnk.tumblr.com/). They held my hand through this first chapter and said so many nice things to me about it that I have almost cried like five times, all out of happiness. 
> 
> I hope you like it. I hope you like it a lot, because I'm having a really good time writing it.

Mornings were Gerard’s favorite, assuming he’d managed to sleep the night before. He woke up early, when the sun was barely even considering coming up. He’d busy himself with coffee and whatever tome he’d dragged home from work, perusing it lazily until he had finished his second cup and was awake enough to make notes in his journal about it. Eventually he’d get dressed and go out onto the deck with a third cup and his smokes, watching the town start to wake up as the sun crested over the horizon and bathed everything in a golden light that was somehow different from its equal in the afternoon. Maybe it was because he was usually the only one awake to appreciate this one, but it felt more personal, like it was just for him.  

With nowhere to be, he would waste an hour and half a pack of cigarettes like this, just taking everything in. His earliest class wasn’t until noon but he specifically scheduled office hours before class so he would have to be on campus earlier. No one usually showed up, but he liked being there early, knowing his productivity was better in the mornings. The problem was, it didn’t matter how early he awoke, he got so distracted by his view of the town that he was usually late. By this point, being late was part of his routine.

He took a drag from his cigarette, knowing he really didn’t have time to finish it. Although the stop was right in front of his family’s shop, the shuttle would be leaving in five minutes and he didn’t even have his shoes on. At least his papers were in his bag — last week he’d accidentally left the essays he’d been grading on the counter in his shuffle to get out the door, only realizing it once he was already seated on the shuttle. It was only because Beth liked him so much (and because he was the only one on the shuttle at that hour) that she’d agreed to wait while he ran up and retrieved them. Even then, she’d grumbled about how the Ways were always ruining her schedule and making her late.

This had instantly earned a protest from Gerard. _He_ might be consistently late to everything, but that didn’t mean she had to drag Mikey into it. Beth had spent the entire trek recounting the time that Gerard’s brother had somehow persuaded her to detour to this shop he really wanted to go to, that it would only take two minutes, and then she had been forty minutes late to everything for the rest of the day. He understood — it was beyond difficult for him not to give the kid whatever he asked for. Mikey had been twenty-four for over a month now, but he was still innocent in so many ways, and Gerard would always think of him as the toddler he’d dragged around their grandparents’ store when he was barely big enough to hold him. 

Gerard shook himself out of that reverie, glancing back into the apartment at Mikey, still curled into a ball on the couch. He didn’t understand how exactly Mikey was able to tuck all his long limbs when he slept and end up so compact, but he was completely covered by the small blanket Gerard had thrown over him. He had been out late and was still wearing last night’s clothes. He’d obviously stumbled through the front door and into the living room, falling asleep on whatever cushy thing wasn’t filled with clothes or Gerard’s papers.

Glancing at his watch and muttering a curse, Gerard stubbed his cigarette out — he’d only smoked a third of it but he didn’t have time to finish — and left the rest in the ashtray, knowing Mikey would want it later. Even if he pretended he wasn’t smoking these days, Gerard knew better. Slipping back inside, he pulled the glass door shut and gently tugged up the blanket over Mikey’s shoulders before pulling on his shoes, a burnt orange pair that he had fallen in love with even though his grandma thought they were hideous. He made it down the two flights of stairs just as Beth was closing the doors to the shuttle; she shook her head as she reopened them. 

“You would think that you could manage to show up on time, considering that you take the same shuttle every damn day,” she said, her mouth pursed into a judgmental dot of the deep purple lipstick she always wore. Gerard just grinned at her, taking the steps two at a time and swinging into the seat directly behind her. 

“Ah, come on,” he replied. “You love waiting for me. Your entire day would be ruined if I showed up on time.” Gerard looked up into the mirror above her head, making eye contact with her for just a second as she pulled away from the curb. His bright red hair was a mess — he hadn’t taken the time to comb it that morning, but at least it was clean, and he ran his fingers through it to resettle it so it lay right around his ears. “The rest of your schedule practically depends on me being late. 

“I was tired of being consistently late to every other stop ‘cause of you,” Beth spat back at him. Gerard watched her roll her eyes, but the corner of her mouth had turned up, and he knew she wasn’t really irritated. Grinning again, he leaned back in his seat, pulling his journal out of his bag and going over the notes he’d made that morning, quickly losing himself in them. There was a rune that had been stumping him for weeks, and he was so close to solving it that he was surprised he could pay attention to anything else. Gerard knew he got a bit focused when he was passionate about something, but the people who loved him had long since become accustomed to it. Beth, for example, knew to make sure to get his attention at the campus stop or else he’d miss it and she’d have to loop back and drop him off. He wished that knowledge hadn’t come from experience. 

“How’s Mikey?”

It took Gerard a second to realize she was speaking to him even though there was no one else onboard. He tipped his face up and blinked at her in the mirror, her eyes on the road and not on his reflection. 

“Uh… fine?” He was frowning, unsure what she was getting at. Was there a reason Mikey wouldn’t be fine? Had he missed something? Beth just glanced up at him, holding his gaze for a second and then breaking it. 

“Just wondered. Haven’t seen him in a while.”

“Oh,” Gerard replied, relaxing slightly and closing his journal. “He’s been busy working. Grandma’s trying to encourage him take over the store and ‘ _do something with his life_.’” He’d affected his grandmother’s tone, a high-pitched breathy voice that always made him smile, even if she was berating him for not eating well enough or something. “But he doesn’t want to run a grocery store! He just wants to, I don’t know, work the counter during the day and then go out dancing at night. He’s just a kid.”

Beth was pursing her lips again — she and Gerard had this argument almost weekly. She had been friends with their grandparents for years and thought that Elena worked too hard for her age. Gerard, who had gone to university and was now teaching there, was forgiven for not taking over, but Beth seemed to think that Mikey was obligated. Luckily they were too close to campus to get into it, so Beth held her tongue and made a scoffing noise, which Gerard conveniently ignored. He busied himself by shoving his journal back into his bag and poking around in it, like he was looking for something. When Beth stopped in front of the bookstore, he flashed her a cheeky smile as he descended onto the sidewalk. She would likely lecture him later about how he, as the only one Mikey really listened to, needed to talk some sense into his brother, but his mind was already on obtaining his next cup of coffee.  

It didn’t take very long to get from the shuttle stop to the coffee bar nestled into an alcove on the ground floor of the Cultural Studies building. Most mornings he spent the walk looking around and taking in the beauty of the campus. It wasn’t very big, but it was beautiful, and it was his. The buildings were old, but well-taken care of, and Gerard had loved them since he was a kid and had first visited the campus on a school trip. As he walked across the plaza, he tugged his journal out again. There was a sketch he wanted to show Addie, his favorite grad student, though he technically wasn’t allowed a favorite. She wasn’t much younger than him, about at the end of her program — her senior thesis was very closely related to the work Gerard was doing on runes, and he always caught her up on anything he found relevant while she made him coffee. Addie was putting herself through school, working at the coffee bar as well as TA-ing for him on top of all the schoolwork she had, and he thought she might actually sleep less than he did. It was early still, no one but him in line, so he walked right up and set the book on the counter. 

“Good morning, Addie!” He couldn’t see her, but that didn’t stop him from continuing. She was probably ducked behind the counter fishing for some filters or something. He remembered from his very short-lived, very awful days as a barista while he was a student. He had spent more than half of his weeklong career spilling coffee instead of actually making it, and his supervisor had definitely noticed. “I think I’ve about cracked that rune, you know, the swirly one.” 

A confused frown fell across his face — she had usually popped up by now. Leaning across the counter and looking down behind the bar, he came face to face with someone he’d never seen before, at least not that close. Eyes filled his vision, this striking hazel color, all green around the edges and brown in the center, wide as anything. He would have recognized those eyes if he had seen them before. Before he could back away, they were narrowing in anger and Gerard belatedly realized that the eyes belonged to a person, and that person was definitely not Addie.

“Uh, dude? Can I fucking help you?” 

Gerard straightened up, taking a step backwards so suddenly that he almost slipped on the stone of the breezeway. Steadying himself, he watched as Not Addie stood up, bag of filters in hand, their expression fading from angry to merely annoyed. Not Addie was covered in tattoos, from what Gerard could see of their forearms, and they had a lip ring. Definitely _not_ Addie. Addie looked like a standard academic, and Not Addie… well, Not Addie looked like a punk. Maybe an art major, or something. Gerard realized he was staring and flushed, he could feel it, though he managed to keep eye contact. 

“Oh, sorry. I’m so sorry. I was looking for Addie.”

“She’s sick.” They were using the same gruff tone they’d used before, when Gerard had leaned too far into their space, and he gave a sheepish grin, absent-mindedly tugging at the hair on the back of his head. He was immediately concerned; Addie was never sick, and he should email her to check on her. He would have apologized again but Not Addie was speaking again. “Least I think she is. She called off.”

“Oh.” Gerard didn’t know what to say. “Right.” 

“Uh, I can’t help with your…,” Not Addie paused, motioning down at Gerard’s sketch, which was still lying on the counter, “rune thing. But I can get you coffee.” This was said with a shrug so Gerard knew his decision about coffee didn’t matter either way. He nodded, a bit dazed. It threw his mornings off completely when something happened that he wasn’t expecting, and seeing someone else working the coffee cart had definitely been a bit unexpected. 

“Sure. Coffee. Large, please. With room.” He still felt a bit put off by the situation, but coffee was standard. Coffee came easily. He didn’t have to think about coffee to order it. Not Addie nodded, picking up a pen and a cup, writing something on it and setting it to the side. Gerard frowned again as he pulled out his wallet, not really sure if plain coffee needed an inscription. Maybe Not Addie had a memory problem. As he paid, he noticed that Not Addie was wearing a name tag, which read ‘FRNK’ in handwriting that was somehow worse than Gerard’s. “How do you pronounce that?” he asked, pointing at the name tag. 

The barista didn’t even look down, just sighed and put Gerard’s payment in the register. “It’s _Frank_. Not very difficult.” Gerard’s cheeks were burning again; he withdrew into himself, pulling his notebook off the counter and clutching it to his chest as he waited for his coffee. He had to physically bite his tongue to keep from saying anything else. He was so fucking embarrassed. His gaze had fallen to the ground, and he didn’t notice that Frank had set the cup down until he heard a throat-clearing cough. He glanced up, careful not to make eye contact again, and reached out to take his cup, pausing with his hand halfway to the counter as he remembered he hadn’t tipped yet.

“Oh. Um, thank you.” Gerard hurriedly stuffed a bill into the tip jar and took his coffee, walking away from the cart as quickly as he could. He didn’t even stop to make his coffee — he had powdered creamer in his office and some sugar packets, and while it wasn’t as good, it would do. It was definitely better than hanging around until he somehow managed to misstep again; Frank’s quirked and judgmental eyebrow was already permanently burned into his brain. It wasn’t until he’d unlocked his office, tossing his bag into the chair his students normally sat in that he’d remembered about the writing on the cup. Turning it around in his hand, he saw the words ‘SPACE ISSUES’ scrawled in black ink up near the rim, and he grimaced. He was an oblivious idiot, and he needed to pay more attention to his surroundings.  

As he went about unpacking his bag, he focused on breathing and calming himself down. Usually he opened the window next to his desk to get a bit of natural light, but the art building was right there, and he couldn’t even bring himself to look at it. There was nothing to worry about, Frank was only filling in. Tomorrow Addie would be back and she didn’t mind it when he over-enthusiastically greeted her and immediately launched into research talk. He would probably never see Frank again, and he could deal with keeping his window closed for the rest of forever. No big deal. By the time he sat in his chair, doctored coffee transferred to a giant ceramic mug, the encounter was basically forgotten, his thoughts already back on the rune problem. 

He didn’t think of it again until his computer chimed and he looked up to find an email from Addie telling him she wouldn’t be in today. He should have reached out to her first, but he’d been so distracted by how awful he’d felt about his interaction with her coworker that he’d forgotten.

> _Absolutely no problem — I hope you feel better soon. Get some rest Addie._
> 
> _\- Prof G_
> 
> _P.S. Does your coworker not like anyone much or is it just me?_

A few minutes later, there was another chime.  

> _Frank hates everyone. Not just you._

Good. At least it wasn’t personal. He threw himself into his book again, getting so invested in it that he was nearly late to his noon lecture. 


	2. This Life Is Yours, If You Want It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikey and Gerard have a conversation about Mikey's future that neither of them really want to have, and then Gerard gets a lecture (more like a guilt trip) about his lack of a social life.
> 
> ~~man I suck at chapter summaries~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks a million times over to my betas, perfection incarnate aka [Mackenzie](http://awsugar.tumblr.com/) and the too good and gorgeous [Catherine](http://softfrnk.tumblr.com/).

The rest of the day had gone by relatively smoothly, though his undergraduate lecture had been a little less organized than usual simply because Addie wasn’t there. That afternoon found him sitting at the shop counter in silence as Mikey manned the register. He was nose deep in a publication regarding a building that had survived no less than forty massive earthquakes since it had been built. It was interesting because no one could figure out why until another quake had revealed a stability rune, etched into the foundation over a thousand years earlier.

"Grandma lectured me this morning." 

Gerard looked up from his papers, cup of coffee sitting to the side, forgotten. He picked it up and took a sip, grimacing because it was practically freezing. 

Mikey, so used to Gerard's habits, didn't even need to ask what the face was about, just rolled his eyes and took the cup from him, setting it on the warming stone that sat on the counter for exactly this purpose. It was because of Gerard that they even had warming stones, actually. Mikey had grown tired of listening to him whine about cold coffee and had snooped through Gerard's books until he found a rune that would work and carved it into a wide flat rock the size of his palm, eventually putting one at each setting on the counter. The stones had been so successful with the regulars that they had started selling them. Gerard still never used his, much to his brother's irritation. 

Cold coffee taken care of, all Gerard could do was stare at Mikey, waiting for him to elaborate even though he wouldn't. He knew exactly what Mikey was referring to, but that didn't mean he wanted to talk about it. Mikey and Elena were his two favorite people in the whole world, and the last place he wanted to be was between them. 

Instead, he busied himself by first stretching, then by glancing around to see if there was anyone shopping in the aisle that he could go "help" so he didn't have to sit here and talk about this. Unfortunately, it was always slow this time of day, before people started getting off work and filtering into the shop for a late afternoon tea or ingredients for their dinner. Gerard usually liked the quiet of it because it let him read and take notes in peace, occasionally breaking the silence by bouncing ideas off of Mikey in random outbursts. He did some of his best work here. 

He eventually had to admit that he had no escape and had to acknowledge the subject. Mikey was still staring him down and standing behind the counter that doubled as a coffee bar. That had also been Gerard's doing, some time around his second year in university. Elena had grown tired of Gerard never being around because he was stuck studying somewhere with a steady caffeine supply, so they'd remodeled and added a small café. They started off selling espresso drinks and eventually added pastries that Elena baked daily; like the warming stones, it had been a wildly popular addition.

“What about?” Gerard asked, knowing that he was being willfully ignorant and that Mikey would see straight through it. He didn’t answer, just continued glaring at Gerard until he lost whatever unspoken staring contest they were having and looked away. That meant he felt bad. “Mikey…”

“It’s whatever. She’s probably right.”

“It’s not that simple,” Gerard protested. He did a lot of that on Mikey’s behalf, both to other people and to Mikey himself. It was his job as a big brother — it always had been. Mikey could do no wrong; just because he was mixed up and didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life didn’t mean he had to do what everyone else thought he should. “I just think it would be easier for you to tell her no if there was something else you wanted to do.” 

“Yeah? And be single-handedly responsible for bringing about the end of the family business?” Mikey was practically spitting venom across the counter, his response was that corrosive. “Thanks, I’ll pass.”

“Mikes, come on.” Gerard was quickly backpedaling, trying to figure out how to support Mikey’s choices when it was obvious all he wanted to do was argue. “If you want to do something else, you should, and you know Grandma wouldn’t hate you for it.”

“No, I don’t know. Neither do you.” Mikey wasn’t making eye contact, his glasses hanging off the end of his nose as he wiped an imaginary spot off of the counter with a rag. His shoulders were high and tense, so the conversation with their grandmother had obviously bothered him more than he was willing to admit aloud. 

“Yes, I — ”

“We’re not talking about this anymore,” Mikey cut him off, holding up one hand. They lapsed back into silence, a few moments passing before Gerard was able to look away, his defense going stale in his mouth. He wasn’t sure why Mikey had even brought it up if he didn’t want to talk about it. Not like it mattered much — Gerard didn’t know what to say to him about this. He changed tactics almost every time the subject came up. Sometimes he’d side with Mikey, saying he had every right to do what he wanted to, and other times he’d tell him that Elena had a point, that he should take over the store. Neither one seemed to be what Mikey wanted to hear, and Gerard understood that. It was obviously some internal struggle that he had to get through on his own, though not attempting to help was a bit outside of Gerard’s capabilities. 

He tried to go back to his essay but couldn’t concentrate, so eventually he flipped it over, sitting back on his bar stool and sipping at his coffee. 

“What do you think Mom would have wanted?”

Gerard wore a shocked expression when he tipped his head up again, looking at Mikey with wide eyes. He couldn’t help it — they _never_ talked about Mom. Their dad wasn’t around, not really, though they occasionally saw him on holidays. But Mom…

“She would have wanted you to be happy, Mikey.” Gerard hated that his voice was higher than normal, but he had a lump in his throat that he just couldn’t swallow. Mikey didn’t seem to have anything to say in response to that, just pursed his lips as he topped off Gerard’s coffee. Gerard could tell that he was frustrated; he could basically hear Mikey thinking. It was hard to pursue happiness if he didn’t actually know what made him happy. 

Gerard, on the other hand, had always known. He’d found a book of children’s runes tucked in their bookshelf when he was five. His dad didn’t seem to know anything about it when he’d asked, but his mom had just given him this sly smile. The first runes he’d ever drawn were in chunky crayon lines. There were ones to prevent bad dreams that he had hung over Mikey’s crib, ones to keep his toys from breaking that he’d folded and tucked inside his toy box. His mom had even pinned her favorite one on the fridge, a shaky child’s version of the rune meant to keep a family close.

Back then, he’d believed in runes so much that he had thought they would work forever. It wasn’t until he was in university that he understood how relatively short they were meant to last. Only the ancient runes still held their power, even centuries old. It was why he’d thrown himself wholeheartedly into their study, hoping to crack the secret of their longevity. 

But the runes didn’t come as easily to Mikey, even though he could get by. There were other forms of magic, anyway. Elena could keep groceries cold for days without the use of electricity, and when their grandfather had been alive, he’d been the best predictor of weather the town had ever seen. Mikey just hadn’t found his thing yet, but he would. Gerard knew he would, even if it took him a little longer.

“Mikey,” Gerard started again, pausing as he waited for his brother to acknowledge that he was speaking, “Mom would have wanted you to do whatever it took to find what the thing you’re good at. You know it depends a great deal on what you are passionate about. So find that thing, and you’ll find happiness. Grandma will understand. We’ll do what it takes, even if I have to… you know, stop teaching to come run the store.” 

Mikey snorted at that. The entire concept _was_ a bit preposterous. Elena would let the store go before she let Gerard quit his job; she loved to brag about her grandson, the youngest runes professor at the local university. He didn’t have the heart to tell her how unappreciated the study of ancient runes was in the academic world — people just didn’t see the value in them these days, not when it was so easy to create new, more specific runes for each purpose. The new ones just didn’t last nearly as long… 

Gerard shook his head, focusing again, just in time to hear Mikey say, “Don’t be stupid, Gee.” His tone was softer, no longer irritated and primed to argue. Gerard knew Mikey was proud of him too, and wouldn’t want him to quit. Mikey pushed his glasses back up his nose with one finger. He turned around to the espresso machine, his movements slow and intentional, like everything else Mikey did. A few minutes later he swapped Gerard’s coffee for a latte, a small pattern in the foam on top. It was an apology, even if Mikey didn’t say it aloud, and Gerard gladly took it. He squinted down at it, spinning the cup a little and tilting his head to determine what the design was. 

“It kinda looks like… a horse?” he concluded after a few more moments of latte scrutiny.

“Ugh,” Mikey groaned, shaking his head at himself. “It was supposed to be a leaf. Maybe my magic is impressively bad latte art.” Gerard snickered at that, sticking a spoon into the cup and stirring until the horsey leaf had dissolved.

The bell above the door rang as someone walked through it, and Gerard resisted the urge to turn around and see who it was, no longer needing an escape from the conversation. It was a regular, though, he recognized her voice, and Mikey walked around the counter to help her find something obscure. After that, it was easy to go back to his essay, occasionally taking sips of his latte.

Within half an hour, the afternoon rush had hit so he packed up his things and headed up the stairs to the apartment. In the three story building, the store took up the first floor and Elena occupied the second; his grandparents used to rent out the third to tenants, but it had been years since that happened. Mikey and Gerard had moved into the third floor apartment when they were teenagers, sleeping and hanging out upstairs and coming down to the second for meals. Their grandfather had always thought it gave them too much freedom, to which Elena would always turn up her nose and reply that they were good boys. They mostly played video games and read comics, though their friends occasionally came over to watch movies. Aside from a few nights where they had too much of the alcohol they weren’t really even supposed to be drinking, she hadn't been wrong.  

As he passed by the door on the second floor landing, he heard his grandma holler his name so he stopped and went inside. Elena was in the kitchen, her back to the door; he had no idea how she knew it was him and not Mikey. Whenever he asked, she simply waved a hand and said, "I know my grandsons." If he had to guess, it was probably the way Gerard ran up the stairs whereas Mikey tended to drag himself up them. 

"Hi Grandma," he called out, knowing she wasn't hearing as well these days, even if she pretended she was. She waved a hand back at him, still not looking around at him. 

He moved into the kitchen, a massive thing that took up most of the space that the living room used to occupy. She had always wanted a big kitchen, and their grandfather had remodeled the apartment for her after Gerard and Mikey moved upstairs. Elena was currently stirring a pot of something over the stove and it smelled heavenly. He kissed her cheek and stuck his finger into the sauce pot, earning a swat as he tasted whatever it was. 

"Gerard!" 

"Grandma!" he echoed, earning a laugh from her for his sass. She shook her head at him but reached to grab a bowl out of the cabinet, scooping some into it with her ladle and shoving it into his hands. 

She said something about it being hot but Gerard barely heard her, getting a fork out of the silverware drawer and burning his tongue on the noodles. He bit his lip to keep from whining about it, but she tutted at him anyway, knowing he didn’t listen. 

“Maybe if you ate more than once a day, you could enjoy your food instead of inhaling it.”

Gerard just wrinkled his nose at her as he chewed, smiling with his mouth closed. There was no point in telling her that he drank at least five cups of coffee a day because she’d just insist that wasn’t food, even though she was wrong.

“Did you just come from the shop?” He nodded, mouth full of pasta. It took a moment for him to finish chewing and by that time, Elena had already started to prattle on about how well the store was doing these days, and wasn’t Mikey a natural at running it. Gerard simultaneously wanted to roll his eyes and to take her bait; he resisted both urges.

“Grandma, what is this?” 

“Oh, hmm? It’s spaghetti carbonara, dear. Do you like it?” Gerard’s eyes grew wide as he took another forkful of the stuff, nodding. “Good.” 

She patted him on the shoulder and reached for an empty container to pack him some for lunch. It was so good that he’d have to try and remember to actually take it to work instead of letting it go bad in the fridge.

“So, sweetheart, do you have any plans for this weekend?” Once again, his mouth was full, though there was less pasta in the bowl now, and therefore less in his mouth. He was able to swallow it much faster this time.

“Just grading and reading. Why?”

This made Elena purse her lips again. She was silent for a moment as she turned the burner off with a twist of her fingertips, and then she sighed deeply. 

“I don’t understand why you never have any fun.”

“I have fun!” His protest was met with the least subtle judgmental face he’d ever seen, and it uncomfortably reminded him of the barista from that morning. “I do…”

“Work is not fun, Gerard.”

“It is, too — at least to me,” he argued, unable to keep his bottom lip from protruding in a pout that made him look and feel like a five year old.

That only seemed to exasperate her even more. She’d completely turned away from the pot now that the food was done, leaning back against the counter with her arms crossed over her chest. “But you’re never going to meet anyone at work.”

“Ha! I knew it.” He was pointing at her with one hand, his other one still holding the bowl of pasta. “This isn’t about fun at all, this is about you wanting to see me settled down and married with two kids and a dog!”

“So I want you to be happy. Can’t a grandmother want her grandson to be happy?”

Gerard was smiling as he replied — her concern was adorable, if a little irritating. He did alright for himself, if he cared to look. The problem, apparently, was that he didn’t care to look often enough. “But I _am_ happy.”

Elena sniffed then, and Gerard hurriedly set the bowl on the counter, just in case she launched into full-blown tears. He ended up just holding his hands out in her direction as she responded. 

“What about Mikey?” 

He didn’t understand the correlation, so he just shrugged. “He’s happy, too. Least, I think he is.”

“No, no. I mean, what about when Mikey finds someone, or moves out? All you two have is each other. You’ll be so lonely.”

She was frowning, and he could tell she was speaking from experience, even if she wouldn’t say it aloud. She’d been married to their grandfather for forty-five years before he passed. It had been almost ten years since then, and she still wore her wedding ring. As far as Gerard knew, she hadn’t been on a date, and probably wasn’t planning on it. 

“Maybe you’re the one that needs to have fun.” Elena brushed him off again, still sniffling.

“I’m an old woman. My time for fun is over. But you,” She turned to Gerard then, taking his hands in hers and pleading, “you have plenty of time. Don’t waste it. Take a break for once.” Her eyes were wide and sad, and he knew he couldn’t tell her no. Mikey had those same eyes, and they were impossible to deny. 

“Fine.” It was comical how quickly she recovered from her supposed sadness over his inevitable loneliness. He could have sworn he heard her humming to herself as she finished packing his lunch. Within ten minutes, she had hugged him goodbye and practically pushed him out the front door. Her excuses about turning in early weren’t fooling him in the slightest — it was still light outside. Gerard knew he’d get upstairs and hear the sound of the soap opera she pretended she didn’t watch filtering through the window. Still, he had a few more essays to get through tonight; he’d found a few that he thought might be useful to Addie.

Mikey came up to the apartment soon after Gerard settled down on the couch with his papers set up in a small stack on the coffee table. Gerard didn’t really pay attention to him moving around the apartment and getting ready to go out until he’d emerged from his bedroom in a completely different outfit.

“I’m leaving.” Mikey tugged a beanie down over his hair as he looked down at Gerard. “Did you want to come?” He was a good brother, always asking, even though Gerard’s answer never changed. 

“Mmm, not tonight,” Gerard replied, as if it was different than other nights. He blinked up at his brother, remembering his promise to their grandmother. “But… Saturday? I’ll go out with you on Saturday, if you’re doing something.”

“Yeah?” The shock in Mikey’s voice was clear, but it was more startled than anything else. He tilted his head, a grin slowly crossing his face. “Yeah, yeah, okay. I’m going to a show. There’s a local band playing. It’ll be a good time.” Mikey was nodding, more excitement in his voice than Gerard had heard in recent memory. Somehow it made him feel guilty, like he should have gone out with him long ago if it made him this happy. 

“Sounds perfect, Mikey.” He was smiling even though his stomach was clenching uncomfortably. It was mostly the thought of going out of his comfort zone, which he didn’t do very often. Even a few days away, he was already anxious, but it would be fine. Mikey wouldn’t take him to something he’d hate.

“Great.” The way Mikey beamed at him was worth it. He had no intention of going to the show and actually trying to meet someone, but maybe his grandma was right. It could actually be fun.

Mikey left, probably with no intention of returning until the wee hours, and Gerard settled himself down to finish reading. When he was done, it was dark in the apartment, and his eyes ached from straining to read in the low lighting. He stood and stretched, crossing to the balcony for a smoke.

There was no moon that night, so the stars were bright by contrast. Gerard lit a cigarette and then leaned his elbows on the edge of the balcony. He still thought Elena was wrong. He wasn’t lonely, and didn’t think he would be anytime soon. Work took up too much of his time, and he loved it. Trying to put someone else in the mix would just upset everything, and he genuinely liked his life. He finished his cigarette, resolving to keep everything the same even if he started going out on the weekends, and then put himself to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two has a surprising lack of any mention of Frank, _whomp whomp_. But there's a whole lot of Gerard's family, so it's almost as good? Idk, I'm a sucker for Mikey and Gerard's relationship and I love writing about it, sue me. (I swear there will be more Frank in the next chapter.)


	3. Do I Have a Choice?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friday is a typical Friday, with maybe a bit less caffeine than usual. Saturday is not typical and it makes Gerard uncomfortable, but he tries anyways. Frank ruins everything by being not outright terrible. Sonorous is a great band name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bless my betas [Mackenzie](http://awsugar.tumblr.com/) and [Catherine](http://softfrnk.tumblr.com/) for being awesome (always) and waiting patiently for me to finish this chapter even though it took me forever. 
> 
> Also shout out to [uhlik](http://uhlik.tumblr.com/) for asking me some really, really good questions and holding me accountable for taking longer than the Strokes to put out new content.

Friday felt much like a replay of the previous day. Gerard woke before the sun came up (despite not going to bed until almost midnight), wandered into the kitchen to start the coffee, and tossed a blanket over Mikey’s passed out form while he waited for it to brew. He never understood why his brother always slept on the couch when he came home instead of walking the ten feet to his actual bed, but he’d stopped questioning it. Two hours later, he was on the shuttle to campus.

He wandered over to the Cultural Studies coffee bar and abruptly headed in the direction of his office when he didn’t immediately see Addie. What if she was sick again? The thought of embarrassing himself in front of her coworker again was worse than the idea of getting through his morning with a coffee deficit. He wasn’t surprised when he received an email from her that she was still sick, but he was groggy enough that he had to reread it three times before he felt like he really understood what it said. The rest of the day passed by without incident, and his graduate seminar actually went well, considering it was a Friday and one of the last sunny days of the year. He remembered the days of being stuck in class when he just wanted to be elsewhere, so he pretended he had an urgent meeting and let the class go thirty minutes early. His evening was spent watching a movie and grading worksheets, something he could easily pass on to one of his grad students, except he liked to keep his freshman students on their toes by occasionally grading their assignments himself. It only took him a few hours to finish, and then he went to sleep early for lack of something else to do.

Saturday mornings were usually spent drinking entirely too much coffee and smoking through an entire pack of cigarettes as he sketched the different parts of the town that he could see from the balcony. However, rain woke Gerard up somewhere around five and he lay there for an hour or so, listening to the sheets of water roll in and pound on the roof. Every once in awhile he could hear Mikey let out a snort in his sleep. Eventually he got tired of lying there thinking about nothing in particular and went to wake Mikey just enough to make him move from the couch to his bed. Of course, he went to Gerard’s instead of his own — when he argued about it, he claimed it was more comfortable. Gerard stifled a protest this time, knowing Mikey in _his_ room was better than Mikey on the couch, and letting him sleep further away from the living room meant he could turn on music.

He couldn’t go out and sketch on account of the weather, so he was already on edge, his routine thrown off. He still made coffee, drinking half the pot at the counter as he remembered he would have to go out that night. He tried to sketch something, anything, and ended up tracing the same star-shaped rune that was bothering him because he couldn’t quite figure out what it meant. His anxiety had partly to do with the upcoming outing and partly to do with the fact that he couldn’t go outside and smoke in the rain, so he was forced to stand at the half-open door to the patio like some kind of prisoner. He knew he was being dramatic, even in his own head, so he rolled his eyes at himself and lit another cigarette, letting the smoke slip through the small gap.

Somewhere around noon and the second batch of coffee, Mikey woke up and dragged himself out to the couch, taking the cup Gerard handed him. They sat on the couch for a few hours, Gerard curled up at one end with Mikey’s feet in his lap, watching whatever cartoons were playing on the television. Gerard could barely sit still, he was shifting around so much, and he finally stopped trying after the third time his brother kicked him.

“Dude.” Mikey was glaring at him, obviously irritated that his foot pillow wasn’t doing the whole stationary bit very well.

“Sorry, sorry. I’m just… anxious.”

Mikey didn’t say anything in response, just nodded and turned back to the television. Gerard thought that was the end of it.

"Are we eating today?"

Despite the fact that they literally lived above the grocery store that their family owned, the two of them were terrible at keeping the house stocked with groceries. The most substantial thing was probably some cream cheese in the fridge door, but who knew if it was still good, or if they even had bread of any kind to go with it. It was basically an excuse for Gerard to get out of the house, for which he was very grateful. He got up and got dressed, slipping on his coat before heading out into the moody weather for food. Instead of popping down to the store and getting something he'd have to cook, he opted to make the trek to their favorite Italian restaurant.

An hour later, he came back completely soaked with a paper sack of pasta containers that was still warm and dry thanks to the rune the cashier had drawn on it right before he left. He stopped to kiss Elena's cheek and left her a small box of tiramisu before heading back upstairs to his apartment. They probably ate more than they should have, but it was Zelda’s, and there wasn’t a person alive who could resist that pasta. Soon they were happily full, and Gerard must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knew, Mikey was shaking him awake, saying they had to leave soon.

Gerard sat up, looking down at his watch only to find he wasn’t wearing it. He didn’t usually put it on when he stayed home; there wasn’t much of a point to keeping track of all the time he was wasting. He went into the kitchen to warm up the leftover coffee from that afternoon and turned around to find Mikey already dressed, which meant that he really didn’t have time to shower, which was fine because he hated showering. It wasn’t that the actual act of showering wasn’t wonderful — hot water was a godsend and he would spend an hour beneath the spray if he could — it was just the conscious effort to get clean. He felt better after he showered though, he wasn’t hydrophobic enough to ignore that, and as he was already anxious about going to the show with his brother, he had wanted any boost in mood he could get. At least his hair wasn’t completely dirty, just enough that it had some texture. He settled for washing his face in the bathroom sink and running a hand through his hair to get it out of his face.

He had neglected to choose his outfit ahead of time, but when he went into his room, there were clothes laid out on his bed already, which had to be Mikey's doing. He shouted his thanks out into the hallway and then got dressed. When he finally stood in front of the mirror in his bedroom and looked at himself, the final effect wasn’t terrible. His shirt was some nondescript black thing that he’d worn a hundred times and his jeans were a bit too tight, which was funny considering how little he ate. All of it went to his thighs and ass though, which is why he usually wore loose slacks to work.

He shrugged his leather jacket on and carefully slipped on the necklace Mikey had gotten him last Christmas, a small gold pendant hanging from a thin gold chain. It had to be custom ordered, since they didn’t mass produce jewelry with ancient runes that no one even knew. The cut wasn’t exactly precise, so it did nothing for his confidence as intended, but he didn’t tell Mikey because he loved both the necklace and the idea behind it. He felt the smallest bit better with the weight of the pendant hanging against his collarbone.

Taking one final look, he went out to the living room to present himself, watching Mikey’s eyes carefully. His brother did a once over and nodded, heading for the front door, which was enough for Gerard. He did the check for his phone, keys, and wallet, and then followed Mikey, feeling strangely empty-handed, like he should have something else with him. Mikey made a noise and Gerard realized he had been turning around to grab his work bag without even meaning to. He flushed, knowing he was going to get completely roasted for it the next time they got into an argument about Gerard’s workaholic tendencies.

The rain had stopped and the venue wasn’t very far, so they walked there, not saying much. Mikey did instigate a pushing match that ended in Gerard almost getting hit by a car, although Mikey maintained that it hadn't even been a close call. Gerard recognized the venue when he saw it; he had been here before for some show or another, maybe back in high school or right when he started university. He was better with visual things than he was with names, so he wasn’t all that surprised when he didn’t recognize any of the bands listed on the marquee outside.

There was one terrifying moment when he realized that his ID wasn’t in his wallet and he might have to go home. He knew exactly where it was, he'd been using it as a straight-edge at his desk, but that didn’t help him now. Gerard didn’t think he looked that young, but apparently the bouncer wasn’t taking any chances. Mikey made a comment about Gerard's hair being a color only a teenager could love, despite him being almost thirty. It made Gerard flush furiously, and the bouncer hesitated before letting them pass. He was only a little disappointed that he hadn’t ended up getting an excuse to go home. As they made their way into the venue, Mikey flashed a glare at him, which Gerard understood to mean he was being accused of losing his ID on purpose and that at least the first round of drinks would be on him, if not the second.

It was dark inside the venue, and way warmer than it had been outside. Gerard almost didn’t need his jacket, but he didn’t feel comfortable enough to take it off. There was a band onstage playing something loud and fast but he didn't think they were all that good. Most people were lingering around the edge of the room and not paying attention to the music, so he was probably right.

He let his brother take care of ordering their drinks, focusing his attention on the counter. There was a hodgepodge of badges and knickknacks pressed into it and secured under a thick layer of epoxy; he could look at it for hours and still not see all the little pieces. His attention was directed back at Mikey when he pressed a cold bottle into his hand and tilted his head in the direction of the bartender, who was obviously waiting for payment. When that was taken care of, they moved away and found an unoccupied table, which Gerard was thankful for. The floor was a dangerous place where people could bump into him, and he was never exactly sure if he was supposed to stand there or dance, and the unknown gave him anxiety. Tables were safe.

The not-so-good band finished and Mikey got up to go talk to someone he knew, leaving Gerard there to sip on his beer as he listened to the music playing over the speakers while the next band set up. He pulled the label off of his beer with his fingertips, and then took out a pen and started doodling on a napkin. When Mikey came back, sliding into the seat across from him, Gerard gave him a small smile and went back to drawing. It wasn’t until he heard a few notes from an electric guitar that he even looked up, and by then the band was on stage. He thought he recognized the person in front of the mic, but then the lights went down and he was bombarded by the sudden sound of an opening riff. The entire energy in the crowd changed, everyone around the edge surging towards the center of the room, attention fully on the band.

To Gerard’s credit, he was able to identify the singer around halfway through the first song, even though the lighting was bad and the person barely stood still enough to get a good look at their face. It was definitely Frank the barista, and seeing them here instantly put Gerard in a bad mood. He found out before the second song that the band was called Sonorous and that somehow pissed him off even more because they weren’t terrible and they had a nerdy band name to boot. He found himself nodding along, much to his chagrin, and Mikey was completely focused on them every time Gerard glanced over at him. The band members all played with a lot of energy, but the singer was on another level. Frank was a full foot shorter than everyone else on stage, but their enthusiasm more than made up for it. Gerard was getting dizzy watching them bounce around the stage. The crowd was definitely into it, getting louder every time they almost spun off of the edge. Gerard had almost forgotten about the slight to his pride and was almost impressed by Frank’s stage antics. Almost.

When their last song ended, the crowd cheered for longer than even the band was prepared for, judging by the grins they were all wearing. The lights came back up eventually to show them already breaking down their setup as the punk soundtrack from before resumed playing overhead. Gerard thought that meant they could go home and he could seethe about Frank ruining everything in the privacy of his own apartment. When he turned around to ask Mikey if they could leave, he was already slipping away from the table, completely ignoring Gerard calling out for him to wait.

He was at a loss for what to do then. He couldn’t leave without Mikey, following him around the room seemed overprotective and lame, and his beer was empty. That last one was something he could actually fix, except that the bar was crowded now that Sonorous’ set was over. He didn't feel comfortable pushing forward to the counter, but that seemed to be required if he wanted to get the bartender’s attention. All he could do was stand there at the back of the crowd and wait until people cleared out so he didn’t have to try as hard.

Someone bumped into his side and he apologized instantly, as if it had been his fault. He turned to find Frank, hugging someone and exchanging ‘ _hey man, how have you been_ ’s with them. Of course it was Frank. Gerard took a step back, trying to ignore how warm Frank was, even though that was impossible given how he was radiating heat from throwing himself around stage. His dark hair was plastered to his head from sweat, but the faux hawk cut was still recognizable. As Gerard deliberated between moving away and wanting another drink, Frank glanced back at him, his eyes bright and ringed with smudged black eyeliner. For one joyous second, Gerard thought maybe he’d gotten away without being recognized, but then Frank did a double-take and all hope was lost.

“Hey, you’re Space Issues!” Gerard grimaced, shaking his head. He would hate it so much if that became a nickname. It was bad enough that this person that he barely knew had called him by it twice now. The person Frank had been hugging had completely disengaged, turning back to their previous conversation, so at least there was one less witness to his death by embarrassment.

“It’s Gerard,” he muttered, hoping that his tone wasn’t whiny, but Frank obviously couldn’t hear him over the rest of the bar noise, judging from the way he leaned forward, ear turned toward him.

“Hmm?” Frank somehow managed to hum at a volume that Gerard could hear. “Didn’t catch that.” He didn’t even get a chance to repeat himself before Frank was insisting on buying him a drink. Gerard protested but Frank took the empty bottle from his hand and quickly lost himself in the crowd. He had no intention of being in the same place when Frank came back. It would surely take him awhile to get drinks — Gerard would be able to find Mikey by then and beg him to get the hell out of this bar. But Frank was unbelievably quick, coming back in under a minute, and he still hadn't found Mikey.

Gerard frowned as Frank grinned and shoved the drink into his hand, a glass bottle of some cheap beer that Gerard never would have bought for himself and probably wouldn’t even drink now. It wasn’t that he was a snob, but he was kind of picky with alcohol when he wasn’t drinking for the sheer sake of getting drunk.

“Er, thanks.” He held the beer up to indicate what he was talking about, just in case there was any chance Frank thought he was thanking him for something else, like the terrible nickname or the show. “Your band is pretty good.” It was an empty platitude, the kind of thing that was polite to say to anyone whose band didn’t outright suck. Even then, Gerard was no expert on judging bands, but his brother came to a lot of these things and he had been attentive for the whole set. They must not have been terrible.

“Oh, you liked it? That’s rad. Fucking… thank you.” Frank’s eyes were wide and he was grinning at Gerard like he’d just gushed over the band and told Frank how much it had changed his life. It made him uncomfortable, like this tiny, moody guy was deliberately misunderstanding him to set him up as the butt of another joke. Where the fuck was Mikey? Gerard stretched up on his toes, looking for the familiar blond head of hair. Had Mikey been wearing a beanie tonight? Gerard couldn’t remember.

Someone stumbled into Frank as the next band started their set, making him fly forward into Gerard, spilling both of their beers. He watched as Frank’s face flashed from shock into irritation before he straightened up, turning to rip into the guy who had pushed him.

“Hey man, what the fu—” For some reason, Frank froze mid-curse, turning back to stare at Gerard’s fingers holding onto his wrist. He hadn’t meant to do it, had simply reached out to catch Frank so he wouldn’t fall, his hand grabbing at the nearest part of him. They stood there staring at their hands for a few seconds, long enough for the guy who had ran into them to completely exit the situation, and then Gerard looked up and saw Frank’s face.

Growing up, Gerard had spent a lot of time watching people from the corner of the room. He was a natural loner, someone who would rather read a book or play a videogame than interact with people his age, but he was occasionally forced to be present in social situations. He would watch people interact with each other; from that, he had learned how a twitch at the corner of someone’s mouth could mean irritation, how narrowed eyes meant suspicion.

For all his expertise, he couldn’t decipher Frank’s expression at all.

His eyes were wide and his mouth had fallen open just a little bit as he stared at Gerard. All of the joy and giddiness that had been practically oozing from Frank’s every pore after his set had vanished, replaced by something that Gerard would have recognized as concern if it had made any sense in the context of the current situation.

Mikey chose that moment to pop up at Gerard’s side, startling them both enough for Frank to shake his wrist free. He mumbled something that Gerard couldn’t hear and then he was gone, vanishing into the crowd. Mikey and Gerard watched him go, twin expressions of confusion on their faces, and then Mikey was turning back to Gerard, one eyebrow cocked high above his glasses.

“The fuck was that about?”

All Gerard could do was shrug. He had no idea how saving Frank from falling had instantly made things so awkward, but he figured that was about par for the course for him. All he wanted now was coffee and his bed, and Mikey seemed to sense that (probably on account of Gerard’s pout). He sighed and grabbed Gerard’s sleeve, heading for the door. Mikey would probably go back out immediately, but that didn’t matter. Gerard didn’t mind being alone again as long as he could unwind and overthink the entire evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for this chapter not coming as quickly as I had hoped. I was having problems with pacing, but I also detoured into figuring out Frank things that will definitely come into play later. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but I will tell you that Frank absolutely hates his magic. 
> 
> P.S. Sonorous is a spell from Harry Potter that amplifies sounds. I thought it was pretty fitting for a punk band.


	4. We May Need the Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sundays are for cyber stalking. Mondays are for meeting Addie, Gerard’s favorite grad student, and also for making apologies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am low key in love with [Mackenzie](http://awsugar.tumblr.com/) and [Catherine](http://softfrnk.tumblr.com/) for being the best betas I could have asked for. Their excitement keeps me excited, and when I’m excited, I write more. Thank you both so much.

Gerard was chewing on the cord of his headphones, one in his ear while the other dangled from the corner of his mouth. It was a bad habit, but he barely even noticed it anymore unless Mikey yelled at him to stop. As a result, the cord had all of these tiny imprints of his teeth, like a small animal had gotten ahold of them. 

So far, he had found no less than ten articles about Sonorous, three of which were actually about the band and had nothing to do with Harry Potter or audible qualities of metal. It seemed that they were very much a local punk band that didn’t even have an album out yet, just some demos that sounded like they were recorded on tape, which made no sense given that they were posted online. After some digging, he even found the band on a social media site. The very first image was a shot of Frank grabbing the mic, mouth wide in a silent scream that Gerard knew, from the night before, was actually quite loud. He stared at it for a while, like the Frank in the picture would start talking if he looked long enough and give him answers to all of the questions he had. He was only slightly disappointed when it failed. 

There was a video from one of their gigs, something one of their fans had taken on a shaky phone camera and posted to the page. He watched it once and had to start it again when he realized he hadn’t paid attention to anything or anyone in the video but Frank. He had apparently missed a lot each time he had run into Frank; until he saw it on video, Gerard hadn't realized he had a nose ring or that his ink was so extensive that he even had tattoos across his fingers. Gerard had a really bad habit of not paying attention to other people when he spoke to them, or at least their appearance. He just didn’t look people in the face when he spoke to them, and most of the time it wasn’t even on purpose. The only reason he knew what Frank’s eyes looked like was because they had been kind of difficult to miss when he had leaned over the counter at the coffee bar. 

He started the video over again, trying to see if every member of the band was inked on every visible inch of skin — and maybe the inches that weren’t visible? He didn’t let his mind wander there, or at least he tried not to. His bottom lip caught between his teeth and he frowned, his eyes moving up Frank’s arms to look at his face again.

“What are you doing?”

Mikey’s voice was accusatory and loud, right in Gerard’s ear. He decided to pretend that the reason he slammed his laptop shut was from surprise and not from the shame of getting caught stalking the band from last night. Pushing a hand through his hair, he frowned and shook his head, ignoring the way his cheeks were burning, the way Mikey was grinning smugly. 

“Nothing. Just, uh, researching.”

“Right.” Mikey raised an eyebrow, obviously not convinced. Gerard knew he wasn’t off the hook yet, even as Mikey hopped over the back of the couch and landed in the seat next to him. Gerard pulled his other headphone out, busying himself by twisting the cord into a bundle around his fingers. “You know that guy?”

“I don’t.” There was no question of who 'that guy' was. He ignored the look on Mikey’s face; he knew his brother wasn’t stupid, even if he did have the urge to play out the whole brother bit where he pretended he was. “Not really. He works with one of my grad students. Addie.” Even though they'd never met, Mikey knew who Addie was, just like Addie knew who Mikey was. Gerard was very good at gushing about his favorite people to anyone who would at least pretend to listen.

“ _You_ work with Addie.”

“No, not… Her other job. The coffee bar thing.”

“Hmph.” Whenever Mikey had a conversation, it was always like he barely cared, but Gerard could tell the difference. He might be staring at the television, but he was worrying at his teeth with his tongue, obviously thinking. “And last night was… a moment?”

Gerard blanched. “No, Mikes. What? No. Last night he was in the middle of playing a joke on me or something, I don’t know. He shoved me on accident and then bought me a beer.” He hadn’t been able to figure out what Frank’s intention with that had been, and it was driving him crazy. A drink as an apology was just too simple. “Then someone pushed _him_ , and I kept him from falling. That’s it.”

“And?”

“And that’s it,” he repeated. “You’re caught up. I know nothing else about him other than the fact that he’s in a band.”

“That’s it?” Mikey looked like he had suddenly smelled something awful and Gerard had to resist the urge to sniff his own shirt to make sure it wasn’t him. “You _suck_ at internet research.”

“I wasn’t—,” he gave up on pretending in light of defending himself. “I do not!”

“‘ _He’s in a band_.’” It was irritating how similar Mikey’s falsetto imitation of Gerard’s voice sounded to Gerard’s imitation of their grandmother’s voice. “Oh, very good, Gee. How long did it take you to figure that one out?”

“Fuck off, Mikey.”

“Whatever. I'm going to be late to work anyways.” Only Mikey could be late when it was literally a thirty second descent down the stairs to get to the shop. He stood up and tugged at the hem of his sweatshirt. “Let me know when you figure out he's got tattoos." 

Gerard tossed his headphones at Mikey's back as he left the apartment. He missed by at least a foot.

* * *

On Monday morning, Gerard didn't even attempt to stop by the coffee bar. The odds of Addie being sick for that long were slim, but he wasn't taking chances after his second run-in with Frank. Addie showed up in his office a bit after eleven, holding a fresh cup of coffee in each hand, bless her. Gerard didn’t even try not to make grabby hands for his.

“Where were you this morning?” Her bag was still slung over her shoulder, fabric stretched to the seams with her uniform, and her dark hair was still drawn back in the messy bun she wore during her shifts at the coffee bar. She hadn’t even stopped to drop her things off in the office she shared with two other grad students. “You never skip coffee. Are you sick now? Please tell me I didn't somehow get you sick because that was the whole reason I stayed home.”

Gerard had been busy falling in love with the paper cup of hot caffeine in his hand, so it took him a moment to understand what she was even talking about. His brain tried to fill in the missing pieces, supplying memories from a dozen other mornings, and he started to protest, but then…

“Oh, that wasn’t today, was it?”

Addie, who was in her second year as his grad student, was more used to his random subject changes than most others, but she still raised her eyebrows, not following his thought process. Gerard quickly filled in the awkward silence, making his excuse, which wasn’t an excuse at all.

“I thought you were sick again.” 

This made her eyebrows furrow in confusion. “That’s literally never stopped you before.”

They stared at each other, each waiting for the other to speak. He could see the instant the realization hit her.

“Oh my god, does this have something to do with Frank? Are you avoiding him?"

"What? No!" His exclamation was quick, but Addie was quicker. 

"Where's the cup? I want to see." Of course Frank had told her all about the cup. Her eyes darted around his desk, looking for the cup. He had a terribly bad habit of letting empty cups collect on his desk for days until one of his grad students teased him into throwing them all away. Normally it would have taken her longer to find it amongst its peers, but Bob had sent them all into the trash last week. There were only two now, including the one she’d just brought him, and that one was still clutched in his hands. Before Gerard could reach for the empty cup from Thursday, she’d already grabbed it, turning it over in her hands. He flushed as he saw the grin on her face. 

"'Space iss-ues.'" She emphasized each syllable, gingerly setting the cup onto a shelf above his desk like it was a piece of art. "I should probably call you Professor Issues, though. Formality and all." Addie grinned, obviously proud of her wit, and tossed her stuff and herself into the empty chairs.

"Oh, hush." Gerard leaned his face into his hands, hiding his blush and grumbling something about becoming a customer story, told to coworkers and laughed about.

"You got to see his band though." It was more of a statement than a question, and Addie didn't even give him time to confirm.  "Man, I've always wanted to go. I have no idea how Frank would even make a good frontman. He's such a grump. I think he might just hate the job though." She ignored his protests, talking over him in that chatty way she always did. "I don't think following him to a bar helped your case, either way." 

"Oh my god," Gerard groaned in frustration. "I didn't follow him, okay?"  

Addie's brown eyes were laughing at him, even if she managed to keep her face mostly straight. 

"Relax, Professor G. Honestly. The only reason he told me was because he knew I worked with you." It sounded like a lie, but Gerard didn't know why Addie would lie to him about this, even if she was staring at the floor. "He barely even remembered, just mentioned it to me at the end of the shift."

Gerard didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved that he hadn’t made a bigger impression. 

Addie took advantage of his silence as he tried to figure it out, chin in hand and a mischievous smirk on her face. “Do you think your freshmen will be heartbroken that you’ve decided to forego a forbidden relationship with them just to try and romance an engineering major?”

There were so many things Gerard didn’t understand about that statement that he didn’t even know which part of it to address first. Luckily (or rather unluckily), he didn’t get the chance.

“Professor Way.” 

While he’d been distracted by talking to Addie, someone had appeared in the doorway to his office, and of course it was the Dean of Cultural Studies. There was absolutely nothing untoward going on in Gerard’s office at that — or any — moment, but he still felt guilty, like he wasn’t allowed to develop a friendship of any kind with his students. 

“Miss Rosales.”

“Hey there, Dean Samuels.” For all of Addie’s not-so-secret feelings about the dean being a big bully, even _she_ sat up a little straighter in her chair when the dean spoke to her.

The dean looked thoroughly less than impressed with both of them, and Gerard wondered what he might have done this time. Maybe she was still irritated with him for showing up to the last department meeting with some of Elena’s chocolate chip cookies and completely derailing everyone for a solid five minutes. 

“I just wanted to remind you about the budget meeting tomorrow morning.” She had turned up her nose and was looking pointedly at him, like he’d ever given her reason to think he wouldn’t make it. The fact that she’d come by his office in person, in addition to the three emails she had already sent to everyone in the department, was a complete display of just how passive-aggressive she could be. “Ten AM, sharp.”

“Of course.” Gerard nodded. “I wouldn’t dream of missing it.” 

Without another word, Dean Samuels nodded and continued down the hallway. Addie swung her head around, eyebrows raised so high they almost disappeared underneath her bangs. 

“Someone hates you. What did you do, open her window on accident and burn her with sunlight?”

“Shhh, don’t say that. Vampires are cool, don’t ruin them.” Gerard got up and walked to the door, peering down the hallway in the direction she’d gone to check that she was no longer within earshot. “They also have super hearing.” His voice was hushed as if he was taking precaution just in case Addie was right.

Addie snorted with the effort of not giggling, which made Gerard beam. He loved when he was clever and quick enough to make people laugh. Crossing to his desk again, he handed her the stack of papers he had graded Friday evening. 

“Please enter these into the grade book. We’ll hand them back at the end of lecture today.” Addie took them, shoving them unceremoniously into her already full bag. Gerard just shook his head and continued. “I have to review the budget proposal Dean Samuels sent out last week and come up with an eloquent way of saying ‘No, we can’t teach a subject with negative money.’”

Addie was already standing up and gathering her things. “Right-o. I’ll see you at lecture.” She ducked her head back into the room five seconds later to smirk and say, “Goodbye, Professor Issues.”

She was already gone by the time Gerard told her to get out, leaving him shaking his head and laughing to himself.

* * *

The day’s lecture was on correlation between age and permanence when it came to rune strength. It was an introduction, a simplification of twenty years of research done by the department, and even that was a difficult concept for most of his first year students to grasp. Whether or not a student did well in this section was key to them advancing to the secondary class next semester, so Gerard always went through it slowly. He tried to be patient, he really did, but two hours of answering questions like “ _Which brand of permanent marker works the best_?” was enough to make him want to pull his hair out. 

At the end, Gerard waited at the front of the lecture hall so that anyone who had further questions could come up and ask them. Twenty minutes later, he finally finished explaining to an eager student why she couldn’t keep her clothes clean indefinitely by sewing a freshness rune onto them. After he packed up his things, he was the last one to leave the room. The halls were empty, the next class period having already started. Even Addie hadn’t waited for him, and he usually found her standing outside the door so they could head back upstairs together.

His way back to the office took him by the coffee cart. It was the only way to get there, if the fire exit at the back of the lecture hall didn't count. Gerard would go out of his way not to chance an encounter with Frank, but he wasn't sure that setting off the fire alarm would really be wise. Instead he ducked his head and stared at the ground as he passed. 

He thought about avoiding his favorite coffee shop for the rest of his life, or at least until Frank graduated, and it made him unbearably sad. It was one thing if Frank had a problem with him for no reason, but if he thought he had a reason and Gerard never at least attempted to fix it, that was on him. He stopped halfway to the door outside to walk back to the coffee counter, determined to apologize.

His bravado completely dissipated as he approached the counter and found Frank's hazel eyes looking up at him from underneath long, dark lashes. It took a second for Gerard to figure out why he was so close already, to focus on anything but his eyes, and by then Frank's face had shifted through several emotions and he had taken a visible step back. The checklist he had been writing out on receipt paper was left abandoned on the countertop, pen still clutched in Frank's hand.

"What can I get for you?" The cheery, fake tone was completely at odds with the way Frank was acting, every muscle tensed like Gerard was going to leap over the counter and attack him at any moment. Gerard looked up at his face again, and Frank was doing his best to look like he wasn't freaking out, but his eyes, wide and refusing to meet Gerard's, gave him away. 

"Uh..." Gerard was so confused by the way Frank was acting that he could barely remember what he had walked over here for. The damage must be worse than he thought, if Frank was this unnerved in his presence, but he couldn’t figure out why. Maybe he had accidentally left an online trail when he'd been searching for him, and Frank had found out. That would definitely put him on edge, if the roles were reversed. Gerard swallowed around the nervous lump in his throat. "Coffee."

Frank didn't say a word, simply set down his pen and grabbed for a large cup without even asking what size Gerard wanted. In the back of his mind, Gerard felt that whatever was wrong with Frank was his fault. For some reason, he didn’t like that feeling, but he also wasn’t terribly sure what he could do about it.

Gerard was uncomfortably aware of the way his eyes were drawn to the colorful ink of Frank’s tattoos; he kept looking, and hoped Frank didn’t notice him staring as he filled the coffee cup. There was a bandage taped to his right bicep, only an inch of it visible beneath the sleeve of Frank’s shirt. Gerard had to physically bite his tongue to keep from asking about it because Frank obviously didn’t want to speak to him, but also because he shouldn’t even want to know what new tattoo he’d gotten. 

When Gerard held out his money to pay for the coffee, Frank didn’t move to take it. Gerard looked at him for long moment, hand still outstretched, eventually giving up and setting the money down on the counter. He watched Frank bite at his lip ring, eyes still not returning Gerard’s gaze.

“Um. Okay.” He grabbed his coffee from the counter and took a step back. It was impossible to get the thought out of his head that Frank was acting this way because of him. “Did I… Are you…” For the first time since Gerard had walked up, Frank looked at him, just for a second.

“No. It’s fine.” Gerard didn’t know what was fine, because he hadn’t finished asking a question. He nodded anyways, moving to the end of the coffee bar to prepare his coffee. Frank didn’t move, just stood at the register and continued to chew at his lip. Gerard tried not to pay attention but he kept looking up at him over the carafe of creamer, and Frank continued to stand there, obviously tense as he waited for Gerard to leave. Capping his coffee again, Gerard moved back to the register. 

“I'm sorry,” Gerard started. Frank's eyes flashed up at him instantly and Gerard had to concentrate really hard to not look away. “You know, for the other day, here, and at the show. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, I really didn't mean to.” He managed a small smile even though Frank's expression was still blank, his jaw clenched tightly enough that Gerard could see it. Gerard didn’t say anything either, simply moved to stuff a bill into the tip jar before turning to leave. He didn’t look back at Frank, and Frank didn’t ask him to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry for how long this took to post. I’m supposed to be getting better at timing, but my job is overwhelming this time of year. I should have a week or two of room to breathe now, and I’m already working on the next chapter. Thank you so much for sticking with me even though I can’t seem to stick to a schedule.


	5. Please Don’t Hold Back Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard hasn’t seen Frank in a week and hasn’t thought about him at all, and he most certainly doesn’t care that Frank will be taking over Addie’s shifts at the coffee bar. (Gerard is a bad liar, and Frank is acting stranger than ever.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Catherine](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/softfrnk) and [Mackenzie](http://awsugar.tumblr.com/) ask the best questions and make the best suggestions. Thank you both for being perfect.

“I quit.”

Gerard dropped his fork into the container of food he was eating, making a bit of sauce splash out. Somehow, all of it ended up on the desk and not on his clothes. 

Addie didn’t wait for a response other than Gerard’s stunned silence — judging from the way she was fervently shaking her head, she understood the jump he'd made. “No, not the _program_. I put in my notice at the coffee bar.”

The tension eased out of his shoulders even though he was painfully aware that a good chunk of their interactions happened over the counter of that coffee bar. Just the day before, he’d been picking up his coffee when Addie had suggested that there might be a connection between the runes they had found in two separate texts. As far as Gerard had been able to tell from his preliminary investigation, her hunch was right. 

As Addie prattled on about how the tips weren’t worth the time the job took away from her research, Gerard picked up his fork again and poked at his food. He thought it was best for now if he held off on eating, lest she surprise him with something else and he ended up actually staining his shirt.

A thought occurred to him and he interrupted her explanation of how her abuelo had told her that he’d help cover whatever she lost by quitting.

“Hey, who’s going to take your shift over?”

Addie rolled her eyes. She had probably spent too much time with Gerard to actually be offended by his rudeness, but her imitation was flawless. 

“Don’t you think that’s a problem for my boss?”

Gerard was tempted to point out that he technically _was_ her boss, but he knew what she meant. Still, he let the question stand, and it only took about half a minute of painful silence before Addie gave in and answered. 

“Frank is going to pick it up.”

He hadn’t seen Frank in a week, not since he’d last spoken to him, or _at_ him, since Frank had been pretty quiet during the whole thing. In his defense (if Gerard felt like defending him), it wasn’t like Gerard had given him much of a chance to respond before walking away. He had thought about that a lot in the last seven days, like he would do it differently if he could do it again. He had occasionally, very casually and not at all on purpose, noticed that Frank was working at the coffee bar when he passed by on the way to and from lecture. He never actively looked, as that would be odd and slightly intrusive, almost as bad as buying coffee from Frank in the afternoons when he most definitely got free coffee at his family’s shop. He had only considered going that route a few times, but so far, he’d been able to avoid it.

Gerard managed to keep his face straight even though Addie’s answer had been the one he’d been simultaneously hoping for and also dreading. Frank taking over the morning shift meant that he would have a reason for running into him, but that possibility also meant he would have to talk to him. The whole reason he’d been avoiding him for the last week was because he was almost certain that Frank couldn’t stand him, and the last thing he wanted was to make him feel trapped by Gerard’s presence at his place of work. 

“Hello?” Gerard looked up from his pasta to find that Addie was waving a hand in front of his face. “You still with me?” 

“Yes. Sorry.” He was terrible at conversations when he got lost in his thoughts, which was quite often. When he was interviewing potential grad students, he was very upfront about his lack of adequate communication skills. He knew that some students couldn’t learn well from people who didn’t communicate in the same way they did — he’d had this one professor that gave lectures completely verbally and he had struggled so much with that class — but Addie had always been accepting of his eccentricities. It was part of why he liked her so much. 

“You’re weird.” It was true, and Gerard nodded even as Addie shook her head. “Anyways. Frank’s apparently the only one that can shift his availability around to take it, and they’re going to split _his_ hours up between everyone else and hire someone new. The whole thing should be pretty hilarious, considering how much he's complained every time he’s had to cover a morning shift.”

“Hmm.” Gerard was concerned. It was easy to avoid the coffee bar in the afternoon, but he couldn’t imagine not getting coffee in the morning. “I might have to start going to the coffee place over in the art building.”

“What? Why?” Addie questioned, just a bit too quickly. “I don’t think he’ll be that irritated. You might have to suffer through a few more rude cups, but he’ll get used to being up that early eventually.”

Gerard shook his head without thinking, and Addie’s dark eyes narrowed. She seemed far too interested in this and Gerard had no intention of dragging her into it, even if it would be less dragging and more trying to hold Addie back as she leapt headfirst into his business. He reached for the papers on his desk, shuffling through them as he searched for anything to distract her, but it was too late.

“Well, what is it then? Did something happen? Is that why he’s been asking about you?”

Gerard’s head snapped up at that. “He’s been asking about me?” 

Sometimes when Addie rolled her eyes, he heard his mother’s voice in his head, warning that they might get stuck that way.  

“He has. I thought it was just because he had a weird crush or something. He even asked me if I would make some excuse to drag you over after lecture and I told him _que_ _coma caca._ ” She instantly looked abashed, but Gerard had no idea what she’d told Frank, though he could tell it probably wasn’t anything polite. 

“Huh.” He hadn’t expected that, but if Frank was asking about him, it probably meant that he didn’t hate him. Unless he did, and he wanted Gerard to come back to the coffee bar so that he could punch him. He started to ask Addie what Frank had asked her about specifically, but she was already shaking her head.

“Oh no, I am _not_ getting in the middle. You two are adults, you can figure it out. I’ve got too much to worry about. Talk, don’t talk, never go to the coffee bar again, I don’t care. What I care about is that I haven’t written a word of my thesis proposal in two weeks.”

“Oh, Addie.” Gerard frowned as Addie stood up, her shoulders tight with irritation as she scooped the papers out of the other chair.

“It’s fine, it’s not your fault. That’s why I’m quitting.” She shrugged and Gerard sighed, feeling oddly guilty for some reason. 

“If there’s anything I can do — maybe I’ll make Bob take over your sections this week.”

She peered at him, her eyes wary.

“Really?” 

“Make? Suggest.” He grimaced; they both knew how difficult it was to make Bob do anything he didn’t want to do. “Ask really nicely. Actually, maybe you should beg him…”  

Addie started laughing, and he laughed too, and he felt better. Addie was smart, she was obviously doing what was right for her, and he had to trust in that. He wasn’t sure at all about the Frank thing, but he supposed it would be best if he got it over with as quickly as possible. He would make a point of going there after his noon lecture.

* * *

Gerard tried not to keep looking over at the counter, but it was difficult. He didn’t want to approach Frank while he had customers — the last thing he needed was for someone to overhear them talking and get the wrong idea. Relationships between grad students and professors were frowned upon, and while Frank wasn’t even in the School of Cultural Studies, the idea of potentially becoming involved in a rumor made him cringe. 

Eventually everyone filtered into their classrooms, though he would have sworn it didn’t normally take that long after a class period started for people to clear the coffee shop area. He supposed he didn’t actually know what the afternoon crowd was like, as he usually came in the mornings when people didn’t loiter because they had places to be. It was almost half past the hour when the last customer walked away, and only then did Gerard get up. He took his time putting his journal away, all his earlier hurry seeming to have disappeared now that the time for action was upon him.

He took a lot of care to watch the ground as he walked over, not looking at Frank. It was almost like the anticipation was greater if he didn’t look. He got to the counter and made a big show of looking through some of the snacks in front of the register. 

“Oh, you’re here.”

Gerard looked up at the sound of Frank’s voice, his expression shifting out of the one of distaste he’d put on at seeing the stupid Catberry bars that they’d taken to selling on campus lately. _For when you need an extra bit of curiosity…_ It was absolutely ridiculous, as if curiosity was a tangible skill. Gerard hated cats out of necessity due to his allergy, but that wasn’t what this was about — the concept of using an animal-themed food to make someone more curious was just ridiculous. There wasn’t any indication that someone who ate one of the damn things would become more inquisitive about the thing they were supposed to be learning. His train of thought had gotten so derailed that he had forgotten Frank was speaking to him until he saw the glint of his lip ring twitching.

“Oh. Sorry, I… got distracted by these bars.”

Frank’s face lit up as he laughed, like Gerard had made some joke instead of standing there ignoring him for who knows how long, and Gerard felt woozy at the rush he got from watching it. It wasn’t right that someone should be equipped with a smile like that. It was unfair for the rest of humanity that they had to see it and not try to spend every waking moment encouraging it to happen again. He was completely perplexed by his innate reaction to it, not understanding why Frank should affect him so.

Luckily he didn’t have to deal with it for very long. Frank had almost seemed to catch himself, his smile fading as he picked up his pen and a paper cup, writing something on it. His hair fell into his eyes as he looked down, and Gerard wondered if it ever irritated him.

“I was starting to think you were never going to come talk to me… though, I have to admit I did have hope when I saw you spying.”

Gerard barely kept his mouth from falling open in shock. He hadn’t been spying, he’d been waiting, watching patiently so that he could come over at the right moment. “I wasn’t —”

Frank waved him off, a hint of that smile playing at the corner of his mouth again, and Gerard chewed at his lip. 

“I’m teasing. Of course you weren’t.” He looked up at Gerard, cup still in hand, and winked. He winked. Honest to gods winked. Gerard swallowed so loudly that Frank probably heard it. “Let me make you something?” Frank didn’t wait for a response before he was moving away from the register.

This version of Frank was different from the ones he’d encountered so far at the coffee shop, more like the excited and overly-friendly one from the show, if a tad less exuberant. He didn’t trust him, the same way he hadn’t trusted Frank when they had been standing next to the bar. There had to be something bigger at play here — there was no reason Frank would be so rude to him when they first met just to turn around and buy him a drink two days later. What was even more confusing was the way he’d rushed away after Mikey showed up. Maybe Frank and Mikey had history, but he felt like his brother would have disclosed that information to him by now. The whole thing made no sense, and things that made no sense kept Gerard awake at night. 

“I wanted to apologize.” 

“For what?” Gerard was staring, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. Frank moved smoothly, steaming milk and pulling shots like it was his second nature. It was different than watching Mikey do the same thing — he was deliberate and slow where Frank’s movements were quick and more fluid, like a dance. “You didn’t do anything.”

“But I did.” He glanced up at Gerard for just a second in between pumps of syrup. “I’m not sorry for the cup. That shit was funny as hell. It made my morning, and mornings usually suck for me. Addie will tell you.” Frank shrugged, like it was just the way things were. “Anyways, it wasn’t personal.” 

“It sure felt personal,” Gerard mumbled under his breath, and Frank winced, almost imperceptibly. Gerard would have missed it if he hadn’t been completely focused on Frank.

“I know. It was just… whatever, I didn’t meant to hurt your feelings. Honestly.” 

He seemed sincere, hazel eyes wide as they flashed up from underneath a dark fringe of hair, so Gerard nodded.

“It’s okay.” 

This time, the way Frank’s shoulders let down in relief was completely obvious. 

“Good. I was worried.” 

It seemed unlikely, but Gerard didn’t have a chance to question it. Someone else had walked up behind him, standing in line and tapping their toes. Frank glanced over Gerard’s shoulder and became very focused on finishing the drink he was making. The conversation had come to an awkward end, and Gerard busied himself by chewing at his bottom lip. 

He was staring at the counter again when Frank set a cup down, breaking his concentration. Gerard looked up, surprised to find Frank staring at him again. He wanted to avert his eyes and break eye contact, but it was almost as if he couldn’t. There was a momentary tension when Gerard tried to hand Frank payment only for him to wave it off.

“Can you meet me here after my shift?” Frank’s voice was low, like the person standing in line was going to overhear and tell him he shouldn’t be having a personal conversation while he was working. 

“Oh. No.” Gerard bit his lip again, shaking his head slightly. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” He already felt weird about taking a drink from Frank that he hadn’t paid for, but it was coffee, and he was hard pressed to say no to coffee under any circumstance.

“I just…” Frank was frowning, looking entirely too stressed for the situation. “I want to explain myself.”

“You really don’t have to.”

“Please?” It seemed like Frank was about to protest again when the person waiting cleared their throat. 

Gerard winced and then nodded, pressed to make a decision then and there. “Fine. What time?” 

“Half after four.”

Gerard nodded, picking up his cup and stepping to the side. “I’ll be here.”

As he headed away from the counter, he could hear Frank’s fake cheery tone greeting the impatient customer, and he shook his head. He wasn’t sure what had just happened, or what Frank needed to explain, but he figured he would find out in a few hours. 

He sipped his drink carefully, just in case it was too hot, but the temperature was perfect. It was sweet, just a touch sweeter than he usually liked his coffee, but this was good. It tasted like fall, some combination of pumpkin and chocolate that should have been disgusting but wasn’t. He was surprised that he liked it — he didn’t usually drink fancy things, choosing to stick to plain coffee because it was easier. 

When he got back up to his office and set the cup down, he realized that he hadn’t looked to see what Frank had written on the cup this time. Above the cardboard sleeve in a small and messy script were the words ‘Fireball’ and felt his cheeks flush even though there was no one around to see it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You’re still with me, and that’s amazing, considering how I made you wait for this chapter. I love you so very much. I’m not making promises about the next chapter because I always end up breaking them, and I feel so badly about it, but I’m going to try my very best to get this next one written before the week is out. (Does that count as a promise? idk, idc, it is a HOPE)
> 
> P.S. ‘que coma caca’ basically means ‘to eat shit’


	6. Nothing But Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank and Gerard go for a walk and talk about everything but what they should be talking about; eventually, Gerard just can't take it anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Catherine and Mackenzie turned this around SO FAST — I literally finished writing this around two hours ago. They both deserve a huge round of applause and a thousand virtual hugs (each).

By the time Gerard convinced himself to head down from his office, he was almost late. The worst part was that he hadn’t even been working on anything — at least if he’d been in the middle of an involved rune reconstruction, he would have had an excuse. Instead he had to chalk his hesitation up to nerves, which was odd because he had absolutely nothing to be nervous about.

Frank was already waiting, and the first thing that Gerard noticed was that the apron and hat he had been wearing were gone. He didn’t have a bag like Addie usually did, but it was possible he kept his uniform in the storage area behind the coffee bar. He was leaning against the edge of the counter, phone in hand as he sipped from a plastic cup of water. 

He didn’t look up as Gerard approached, lost in whatever was on the screen of his phone, so Gerard had plenty of time to take in his appearance. His long sleeved shirt was black, his wrist tattoos barely poking out from the edges of the sleeves. The dark mess of hair on top of his head was laying flatter than it had at his show, he didn’t seem to be wearing any eyeliner, and his jeans, while dark, weren’t torn at all. Aside from his piercings, he almost passed for whatever the opposite of a punk was.

Gerard’s shoe squeaked over the tile when he was about ten feet away, and Frank looked up, just his eyes moving. If it had been Gerard, he would have jumped at the very least, but Frank acted like he’d been aware of Gerard’s approach the whole time, which was fine. It wasn’t like he was trying to be stealthy. The corner of Frank’s mouth turned up and he finished typing whatever text or email he was sending and tucked the phone in his back pocket.

“This is never going to work if you’re clumsy, too.”

Gerard frowned, just like he always did when he was confused. “What? What’s ‘this’? What does that even mean?”

Frank’s grin wasn’t an answer, not really, even if he acted like it was. Slipping on the jacket that had been laying on the counter next to him, he pushed himself up from the counter, hips first, and Gerard pretended not to notice.

“Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

He didn’t wait for a reaction to his ridiculous statement; he simply walked away, a bit quicker with his steps than Gerard would have believed had he not previously been witness to Frank’s extreme burst of energy at his show. In the time it took Gerard to get over his hesitation, Frank had almost reached the door to the courtyard, and he had to rush to catch up.

Frank was holding the door open with his back, unlit cigarette between two fingers of his right hand. His water cup was gone, presumably tossed into a recycling bin somewhere between the coffee bar and the door.

“Where are we going?”

Frank shrugged. “I thought we’d go for a walk. It’s nice outside.”

Gerard looked outside, frowning. It was grey and gloomy, one of those afternoons that fooled him into thinking it wasn’t going to rain only to let out a torrential downpour the moment he let his guard down and stepped outside without an umbrella.

Frank was still holding the door open, despite Gerard’s hesitation, his expression simultaneously amused and intrigued. He made a motion with his hand, urging Gerard to hurry up and move through the doors. Gerard nodded, fully intending to, but not before pulling a pen from his pocket and drawing a symbol onto his palm.

“What are you doing?” When Gerard glanced up, Frank’s expression was closer towards curiosity. He had been right about the lack of eyeliner, but Frank’s dark lashes lined his eyes well-enough that none was necessary.

“Dryness rune. It’s not a perfect solution, but it will do the trick if it starts raining.” He paused, pen still gripped between his fingers, and reached out towards Frank, palm up. “I can do one for you too, if you want.”

Somehow, Frank managed to be attractive even while rejecting Gerard’s attempt to be nice. He simply looked at Gerard, the corner of his mouth twitching with a smirk, and then shook his head. “I’m good, thanks.”

It wasn’t personal, Gerard knew that, but he felt a bit defeated as he shrugged and clicked his pen closed before returning it to his pocket. “A little rain never hurt anybody, I guess.”

Frank snorted at that, his cigarette between his lips as he pulled a lighter from the pocket of his pants. His jeans were so tight that Gerard wasn’t sure how he had been able to fit the lighter in them, or how he had managed to take it out. However, he was certain that he shouldn’t have noticed the tightness of Frank’s pants.

“Alright, if you’re done warding yourself against melting…” He motioned out the door again, and Gerard tried not to let on that he’d been distracted by the tightness of Frank’s pants. As soon as he stepped outside, he pulled his jacket tighter around him, hands thrust into the pockets of it.

The courtyard outside the Cultural Studies was bordered by the Art building and the street, the fourth side left open. Frank walked next to him, and they went along in silence until they had exited onto a pathway that led into town. Frank had lit his cigarette, the smoke wafting through the air to curl in Gerard’s face. He noticed that Frank kept turning his head, attempting to blow the smoke in the other direction, which he appreciated even if the wind had other ideas. He didn’t mind it, not really, though the smell of burning tobacco did make him wish he hadn’t left his own cigarettes in his office in his rush to not be late.

“Do you smoke?” Frank motioned with his cigarette in Gerard’s direction, other hand tucked in his back pocket somehow.

“Yeah, unfortunately I do,” Gerard answered, a bit more candidly than he’d planned. He wasn’t really sure why he was embarrassed about it when Frank obviously smoked too. “Too much. I should think about quitting, probably, but I don’t mind if you smoke.”

“Good, because I wasn’t going to put it out.” He flashed Gerard a cheeky grin. “I’d offer you one, but…”

Gerard waited for him to continue, but it was obvious that he wouldn’t do so without further prompting. “But?”

“Smoking is bad for you.” Gerard scoffed out of shock as Frank blew out a lungful of smoke and followed it up with this giggle that was the opposite of grating. “Really though, that was my last one.”

“It’s fine.” He shook his head again, not really sure what to make of the situation. If Frank would have had a cigarette and had offered it to him, he would have had to decline it on principle. The amount of anxiety he had just walking with Frank was astronomical, though it was easing the further they got from campus. His fingers were itching to hold something, a cup of coffee, maybe, and that reminded him of the drink Frank had made for him earlier.

“Thank you, by the way. For the drink.”

Frank had tilted his head when Gerard had started speaking, and his face lit up in a slow-motion smile as he brought up the coffee.

“Yeah, not a problem. I think that’s one of my favorite things about this time of year, that we get the pumpkin syrup again.”

Gerard wasn’t a connoisseur of coffee syrups, and his career as a barista had taken place in the spring (and been incredibly short-lived), so he simply nodded, and the conversation dropped again. They walked in silence for another minute or so, Gerard trying his hardest not to act like he was nervous even though he felt like jumping out of his skin every time a vehicle on the road drove past them.

“So you like runes?” Frank’s voice startled him, and he managed not to completely flinch at the sound. Frank didn’t seem to notice. “Addie said that’s what you were into.”

Gerard tried not to think about Frank asking what kinds of things he liked, what that might mean, but at the same time was making a mental note to pester Addie into not sharing information about him (and finding out what exactly she had already told Frank).

“Yeah, yeah,” he chewed at the inside of his lip. “I guess you could say that. Specifically ancient runes, as opposed to modern ones. I’ve been studying them for years. It’s not really about liking them; they’re my area of research.” Truly, they were his passion, but he tried very hard not to get going on that topic, knowing it was difficult to get himself to stop once he got started.

Frank snorted, obviously reading between the lines. “So what you’re saying is you’re obsessed.”

“No! I mean—“

“You drew a fucking dryness rune on your hand from memory.” Frank rolled his eyes. “You probably live and breathe ancient runes. I’m willing to bet you have at least one textbook with you at all times.” He took another drag from his cigarette before tossing it to the sidewalk and crushing it with the toe of his shoe.

Gerard stopped walking, waiting for him to catch back up, and noticed that Frank leaned down to pick up his cigarette butt instead of leaving it there. For some reason, he didn’t take advantage of the lull in conversation to defend himself, and then Frank was right back at his side.

“Am I right?” Frank asked. Gerard hesitated, chewing at the inside of his lip and trying not to notice the smug expression Frank was wearing.

“Okay, maybe.” He shook his head at himself, knowing Frank had completely hit the mark. “But…” He really didn’t want to do this, but Frank was asking for it, and he felt the need to defend himself practically manifesting itself in his chest. “They’re fascinating. There are runes for practically everything we’ve ever needed them for, save for some of the new technologies that couldn’t possibly have been conceptualized back then, and they were all created thousands of years ago.”

“Yeah well, if that’s the case, then why do people bother creating new ones?”

It was a good question — Gerard had heard it practically hundreds of times, most recently from Dean Samuels at the budget meeting. He didn’t even roll his eyes in exasperation before answering. “ _Because_ people are lazy. Ancient runes are so much more powerful, no one really knows why, but they aren’t designed for the thousands of different and incredibly specific things people want to use them for. Instead of taking the time to combine different ancient ones that combine for one purpose, they’d rather make up something that does exactly what it they want it to, even if it only lasts for a few years, or even months. It’s so... disposable, and almost infinitely more primitive than ancient runes. It isn’t art.”

“But ancient runes are?”

“Yes, absolutely.” Gerard was practically bouncing with his excitement that Frank seemed interested enough to ask questions instead of laughing at him. “And beyond that, it’s practically a universal art, almost a base instinct of humanity. There are similarities all over the world, societies and cultures that couldn’t have communicated, there was no way they could have shared these ideas with each other, and yet… The same runes are recognizable. The rune for warmth, it’s– well, it’s always this circle with variations of spikes. I mean, of course there are exceptions, but what’s interesting is that there are other sources of warmth, even in nature. There are hot springs, and fire, and of course the sun is the biggest, but across the board, it’s almost like they all looked at the same artist’s interpretation of the sun and designed their rune around that. It’s incredible.”

Even as Gerard realized he had done what he always tried not to do and given too much information in a rant that was incredibly similar to the lectures he gave his first-year students, Frank was grinning at him. His cheeks were pink from what Gerard had to suppose was the cold, even though he could tell that his own were flushed from embarrassment. He was completely expecting Frank to shake his head and do what everyone else had ever done by poking fun at his excitement and passion, but he didn’t.

“Damn, you make it sound so interesting. When I took the intro class my first year, it was boring as fuck.”

Gerard simply shrugged, knowing what Frank meant. He had taken classes where it seemed like even the person teaching didn’t care about the subject. “It’s easy for some of the older educators to become jaded by the lack of funding in what the Dean considers a ‘useless and dying artform’ instead of the functional and powerful tool that it is.”

Frank tilted his head, as if he sensed that there was a story to be told there, but he didn’t ask, thankfully. Gerard had probably already said too much with his bitter tone when he spoke about it.

“Well, all I’m saying is that I might have paid more attention if you had been teaching the class.”

Gerard completely forgot about his cheeks being pink, for his whole face flushed. Frank was flirting — there was no other way to interpret his tone, try as he might. He averted his eyes to the ground on the other side of him so he wouldn’t even have to see Frank’s shoes.

“It’s just nice to see someone as passionate as you.” Gerard swung his head up, his eyes wide in shock, finding a cheeky grin on Frank’s face. “You know, about your subject.”

Despite his tone, Frank’s body language was withdrawn. Gerard hadn’t noticed until that moment when it was suddenly all he could see. Frank was being careful to stay on his half of the pathway, every step deliberate, his hands squeezed into the pockets of his jeans so that he didn’t actually brush against Gerard as they walked.

Gerard stopped, and Frank kept walking for a few seconds before he realized that he was the only one still moving down the path. He turned around, head cocked to the side in question, his expression about as puzzled as Gerard felt.

“What are we doing?”

“Uh… taking a walk?”

“No, I mean…” Gerard sighed in frustration, somehow resisting the urge to pout even though he could practically feel his bottom lip curling. “ _Why_ are we walking? Why is this a thing that is happening?”

Frank seemed perplexed by the question, like he didn’t understand why it was being asked in the first place. “Because we’re talking. Getting to know one another.”

“But _why_?”

It was Frank’s turn to sigh. “Because I wanted to apologize and it’s fucking hard to do that if you’re so on edge you’re barely listening to me. I thought if we talked about something you liked talking about, you’d relax.”

Gerard spluttered. “I look like I’m on edge? _Me?_ You look a thousand times more uncomfortable than I feel.” He shook his head, knowing that the tension in this particular moment wasn’t even the half of it; before he could stop himself, he was bringing the rest of it up, too. “What about the other night when I grabbed you so you didn’t fall and you completely freaked out? I’m sorry, but the normal response to that is ‘Thank you.’” Gerard didn’t even know what he was accusing Frank of, he just knew he was too frustrated with his confusion to let it drag on any longer without an explanation. “And then, you wouldn’t even look at me the other day at your work. It was almost like you thought I was trying to make you uncomfortable.”

After a long moment of them standing a few feet away from each other on the path, Frank gave a frustrated shrug and rolled his eyes.

“I just… don’t like people touching me.”

“Oh.” It seemed like such a simple answer to all of Gerard’s questions that he was a little let down. He had been expecting some huge secret with the way Frank had gone about it. “Is that all? Are you afraid of germs or something? Not that I’m judging, it’s completely alright if you are.”

Frank was once again staring at Gerard, his lip ring twitching like he was worrying at it with his tongue. It was a long moment of almost painful eye contact before he gave a hesitant nod. “Yeah. Something like that.”

“Okay, but…” Even if Gerard believed him, which he didn’t, he still didn’t understand Frank’s need to apologize. His arms were folded across his chest even though he had no memory of deciding to cross them. “Why did you feel like you had to fix things? Why the drink at the bar? Why did you make me coffee earlier? I need an explanation — it just doesn’t make sense.” 

If Gerard hadn’t been so wound up, he might have found humor in the way Frank opened his mouth and closed it, and then doing it again, searching for a way to respond. Whether he would have found one given enough time, Gerard didn’t know, because the sky chose that moment to let loose a burst of heavy rain, just like he had feared. 

“Ah, shit.” Frank’s curse was basically an echo of Gerard’s thoughts. The rune on his hand only protected his skin — his clothes were still getting soaked, and he could feel the chill even if he couldn’t feel the moisture. Without a word, Frank rushed down the path, and Gerard went after him. 

They had walked further than Gerard had realized, and it only took them a minute to find shelter under the eaves of some kind of repair shop that had long since closed down, judging by the way the letters on the door were peeling. He recognized the area from the times he and Mikey had spent walking around the town when they were kids — back then, the shop had been open, if not exactly busy.

Frank turned around, his hair hanging wetly in his face, and didn’t seem surprised in the slightest to find that Gerard had followed. Even though his clothes were so completely saturated that he looked like he’d jumped into a pool fully-dressed, he launched right back into their conversation. 

“Look, I don’t know what you want me to say. I felt bad, so I wanted to apologize.”

“But _why_?” Gerard didn’t think that was an adequate reason, even though he wasn’t sure what reason he was looking for.

“I don’t know!” As he emphasized each word, the tiny punk stood up on his toes a little more. “I just wanted to apologize. You felt…” He trailed off, almost like he was catching himself from saying something he didn’t want to, and then proceeded to ignore Gerard’s raised eyebrow. “I thought I hurt your feelings, and I didn’t mean to, and I felt like I had to explain myself. It wasn’t personal, you didn’t do anything, I just wanted to tell you that.”

At first, it seemed like he was shaking with how upset he was, but it wasn’t until he stopped speaking that Gerard realized he was shivering. He felt like scolding Frank for not letting him draw the rune earlier, but then he remembered the alleged fear of germs. 

“You should go home. You’re freezing.” 

“Can’t.” He shook his head furiously. “There are still things I want to explain, and my mom will be pissed if I come home soaked from the rain.”

It seemed odd to Gerard, for several reasons, not the least of which was that Frank was in his early twenties and seemed so concerned with his mom’s opinion, but he wasn’t an expert on mother-son relationships. He pulled out his phone to look at the time and then looked up, seeing the covered shuttle stop across the street. Shifting his weight from one foot to another, he cleared his throat, wondering if he was making a bad decision even as he opened his mouth.

“There’s a shuttle coming in five minutes. You can come back to my place and get dry, and you can explain whatever you need to.”

Frank’s hesitation was clear on his face, and Gerard didn’t blame him for it. It wasn’t until thunder shook the sky that he gave in with another shiver.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, it wasn’t a week, but it was quicker than last time, and things are starting to get GOOD. There’s so much Frank in this chapter, and I hope you enjoy it! I will try not to make you wait too long for the next one.


	7. Something You Wanna Tell Me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mikey has a few questions, Frank has some explanations, and Gerard has lots of awkward feelings. Tea is involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Catherine and Mackenzie own my emo heart. Thanks for being the best betas.

The ride on the shuttle was quiet, which Gerard knew happened often when it rained. For some reason, the wet weather made people whisper, like they were so worn down by being out in the cold and wet weather that they didn’t even have the energy to speak at a normal volume. It was possible that the rain muffled the sound of people’s voices, but it was also possible that people liked listening to the sound of the rain so they naturally hushed themselves to keep from speaking over it.

It wasn’t far between the stop they’d gotten on and the one outside Gerard’s family’s building, but it was made longer by the effort of trying not to look at Frank too much, who was shivering and dripping wet next to him. He kept having the urge to take off his jacket and give it to him, even though it would do no good on account of it being just as soaked as Frank’s own clothes. 

Though he refused to look up and make eye contact with Beth, he knew she was glaring at him every chance she got, which, given the rain and how she had to concentrate on driving, was thankfully not as often as it could have been. Beth’s driving might have been a bit more cautious but it was as quick as ever, and as the bus stopped, Gerard waved his hand to get Frank’s attention, stifling the initial urge to nudge his shoulder. Frank, who had been staring at the floor, seemed startled by the action. Gerard wondered what was going through his head that had made him forget where he was. As Gerard followed Frank to the door of the shuttle, he paused and thanked Beth, whose response was a raised eyebrow and a two-beat hum that Gerard knew meant he would get the third degree from her the next time he saw her. Shaking his head, he sighed and descended the steps onto the sidewalk. 

Frank was staring up at the store, the three-story building blocking some of the rain. It was a brick building, the storefront and the trim of the windows painted a dark shade of blue that had faded since the last time it had been painted. Repainting it was something their grandfather had done every few years, though the task now fell to him and Mikey; they would definitely need to do it next summer. The big window at the front of the store was filled with boxes of the new cookies they’d just got in, stacked high next to a display of produce that Elena switched out each day according to what looked the most appetizing. Above the doors, big white letters in a cursive font were painted spelling out ‘Elly’s Grocery’; a slightly faded banner was tacked underneath announcing that they were ‘now serving coffee and pastries!’ He saw the store so often, he forgot to appreciate how quaint it was, but he’d always been fond of the picture it made, even when he was a kid. 

Gerard moved to stand next to Frank, watching him take it in. After a long moment, Frank turned to him and grinned shyly before shivering again, reminding Gerard that the whole point of coming here was to get them inside and dry. He reached for his bag to pull out his house key and realized that both his key and his bag were back in his office where he’d left them. He had already been expecting to have to sneak by Elena’s door without catching her attention, but he’d been hoping to avoid Mikey altogether, and now he couldn’t. With a sigh, he stepped towards the door and opened it, ushering a dripping Frank inside as the bells that hung from the door handle announced their arrival.

“You live in a grocery store?” In Frank’s voice, there was a hint of the sass Gerard had somehow already become accustomed to, and he almost smirked at it before he saw Mikey watching them intently from behind the counter.

“Er… no. We live upstairs. I just need to get the keys from my brother.”

Frank made a curious face, like he hadn’t even considered the possibility of Gerard having a brother, and then his head was circling around, searching the shop. His eyes grew wide for an instant when he looked towards the coffee bar and Gerard chanced a glance in that direction. In addition to the fact that it was a bit early for the dinner rush, it was still pouring outside, and Mikey was the only person in the store. He was currently glaring at them, which would explain Frank’s surprise, and Gerard could tell by the very particular tilt of his head that they weren’t going to get through this exchange without a ton of questions.

Looking at Frank again, Gerard saw that his expression had faded into one of relaxed recognition. 

“Oh, that’s your brother. The guy from the club. Makes sense.”

Gerard nodded before sighing in his brother’s direction and mumbling to Frank that he would only be a second even though he knew Mikey could drag this out for ten minutes and say all of twenty words in the process. 

He moved toward the counter, trying to keep his shoulders back like he wasn’t about to ask for a favor. Mikey didn’t even greet him, just peered at Frank despite Gerard’s mostly unsubtle attempts to stand between them to prevent just that.

“Hey, Mikey.” Gerard tried for a small smile but Mikey wasn’t having it. He pressed on anyway. “Can I borrow your keys? I accidentally left mine at work.” 

Mikey’s face was blank as his eyes darted from Frank to his brother.

“Does he know?”

Gerard slowly shook his head in confusion, his smile fading into a frown. He felt like Mikey was pointedly trying to get at something, but he had no idea what that something was. “Know what, Mikes?”

Mikey’s eye roll was probably visible from where Frank was standing, if Frank was looking, which was highly likely. Gerard could practically feel Frank’s fiercely bright eyes burning into his back. Mikey’s mouth twitched before he spoke again.

“That you’ve moved on from stalking to kidnapping.”

Gerard’s jaw fell open and he saw a flicker of amusement cross his brother’s face before managing to get over his shock and start stammering out a denial.

“Shut up! I’m not kid— why would you even think…? Holy shit, Mikey, he came here willingly!”

“Sure.” Mikey just shook his head and pulled his keys from his pocket, holding them out for Gerard to take. 

“He did.” Gerard wasn’t happy that his voice sounded so whiny even to his own ears, like he was begging Mikey to agree with him. He knew his brother was teasing, but he cared about Mikey’s opinion of him above all else. 

“Uh huh,” Mikey scoffed. Gerard took the keys after Mikey shook them again and began to twist them in his fingers as he shifted his weight nervously. “Just be careful, Gee.” 

That threw Gerard for a loop because he didn’t think Frank looked very threatening, all soaked and shivering like he was. He glanced back to confirm this, and despite the way Frank waved and grinned widely, he looked tiny and cold, like someone should wrap him in a blanket and give him a cup of tea and a hug. When he turned around again, Mikey was scowling over Gerard’s shoulder at Frank. For some reason that worried Gerard, so he said the first thing that came to his head. 

“Are you going out tonight?” It was a stupid question — Mikey went out more often than not — and Gerard had to keep from wincing. Asking it was a dead giveaway that Gerard was hoping he would, if only because he really didn’t want Mikey and Frank in the same space until he found out what was going on with Frank. 

“Why do you want to know?” Mikey wasn’t the only one who could refuse to answer questions and Gerard shook his head, volleying back a question of his own.

“What did you mean about being careful?”

“What do you mean what do I mean?”

“Why would you think I wouldn’t be careful?”

“Have you ever actually been careful?”

“How have I not been careful?”

“Do you even know this guy?”

“Haven’t I told you that I don’t?”

“Then why did you bring him here?” The tone in Mikey’s hushed voice could almost be mistaken for irritation by someone who didn’t know him, but Gerard wasn’t in that category. There was an underlying tone of concern, and Gerard frowned at it. 

“What’s got you so on edge, Mikey?”

“I’ve got a weird feeling.”

“A weird feeling how?”

“Like there’s something going on.” Mikey shrugged. 

“Well, there isn’t.”

“Yeah, you said that.” His tone made it clear that he didn’t believe him, and Gerard huffed in frustration. 

“There isn’t! Mikey, there isn’t. You know that I would tell you if there was.”

“Okay, okay. Shit.” He looked at Gerard then, a long, hard stare that made Gerard want to look elsewhere, but he forced himself to keep eye contact. They stood there in silence for a few more seconds and then Mikey spoke again. “It just seems like there’s some tension or something.”

Gerard was chewing on the inside of his lip, not sure what he should say about that. Was there tension? He didn’t think so, but maybe he’d missed it. Gerard didn’t get a chance to respond because Mikey was already talking again, which was a lot of words for him, so he must be pretty worried.

“Just… be careful. That’s all.” 

“Okay. I will.” 

Mikey’s raised eyebrow was his only response. 

“I _will_.”

“Mhm.” Mikey’s eyes were still squinting at Frank, but he’d resumed wiping over the counter with the rag he’d been holding. “Bring—”

“— your keys back. Yeah, I know.”

Gerard tried not to slouch in shame as he walked back to Frank. 

“Alright?”

“Yeah, fine.” He motioned towards the door with his head, determined not to look back at his brother again. Frank followed him without another word, and he heard Mikey muttering something about the water they’d tracked into the store before it was covered by the sound of bells as the door opened and shut. 

The two of them made their way up to the top floor without speaking, and luckily his grandmother didn’t seem to be home, or she would have stopped them too. Gerard let them in and pointed towards his bedroom.

“There are some clean and dry clothes in there in a dresser. Make yourself comfortable or… whatever.” His eyes were on the keys in his hand, and not on Frank. “I have to go give these back to Mikey so he can lock up the store later.” 

He looked up then to see Frank nod and set off down the hall without a word. Gerard watched him, his head tilting to the side as he considered Mikey’s warning. He definitely didn’t seem dangerous, though it was possible Mikey knew something he didn’t. For all that Gerard paid attention to other people, sometimes he missed important signs. When he got back down to the store, Mikey was already mopping up the puddles (which probably weren’t the first or the last he’d clean up that day, given the storm), but he stopped when Gerard walked through the door so that he could take the keys back. They exchanged a few words, mostly Mikey reiterating that Gerard should be careful — seriously, what was with him? — and then Gerard headed outside again, going up the stairs as quickly as he could without slipping and falling.

Whatever he had been expecting when he walked through his unlocked front door was not what he got. Frank was curled up on one end of the couch; he’d found the blanket that was hung on the back of the couch and tucked it over his lap. Even from where he was standing next to the front door, Gerard could clearly see the faded university logo on the hoodie that Frank had put on. It was his favorite and most worn sweatshirt, and it wasn’t just big on Frank — it was massive. Gerard had gotten it when he’d started university and he’d been very fond of pasta back then, and where it was loose on him these days, it was absolutely hanging off of Frank. The sleeves went down past Frank’s wrists, covering half of his hands, and he looked so comfortable and warm that Gerard could have sworn he was meant to wear that very sweatshirt.

“Are you wearing my sweatshirt?” The words were out of Gerard’s mouth before he could stop them. 

Frank’s head swung up from where he’d been running his fingers over the frayed hem of one sleeve, his mouth open and his eyes wide. 

“I’m sorry. You said…”

“You’re right.” Of course Frank was wearing his sweatshirt, because Gerard had told him to make himself comfortable, and that was clearly what he’d done. 

“I can take it off—"

“No!” It came out a bit more forceful than Gerard meant, he could see that clearly by the way Frank froze. “I mean… no. It’s fine.” He awkwardly stepped sideways towards his bedroom, keeping his eyes on Frank who was still not moving. “I’m just… going to go change.”

Gerard slipped down the hall and into his room, shutting the door behind him. Only then did he realize the severity of letting Frank into his apartment, into his bedroom. He looked around, trying to see if he’d left anything out that was condemning in some way or another, but nothing stuck out of the general clutter. It was definitely a mess, and he might have cleaned it up a bit if he had known… but there was no way he could have known that the day would end like this. In any case, he was kidding himself if he thought he would have tidied his room. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept on the bed without having to cuddle up to a few textbooks. 

He hurriedly changed out of his wet clothes (which he dumped in a pile on the floor to be dealt with later), pulling on sweats and a plain long-sleeve shirt that was probably clean despite the fact that it was laying on the bed and not in a drawer.

When he went out into the living room again, he didn’t see Frank on the couch. He looked around, trying to find out where he’d gone, only to hear the sound of a cabinet opening in the kitchen. Gerard went to find Frank, looking impossibly small in his sweatshirt, poking through the shelves where they kept the cups and plates. He cleared his throat and Frank turned around, looking like he’d been caught snooping, which he technically had. Gerard didn’t say anything, mostly because he didn’t know what to say, and eventually the silence grew so thick that Frank practically sputtered to fill it.

“I was trying to find your tea.”

“My what?”

“Your tea? Like the tea bags. You have tea bags?”

“Oh.” For some reason, what Frank was saying hadn’t clicked, probably because he didn’t usually drink tea — he was more of a coffee person. He found it odd that Frank worked at a coffee place and was choosing tea over coffee, too, but he didn’t mention it.

He moved towards the drawer in which they kept their hodgepodge tea collection, mostly made of leftovers from the cafe downstairs and rounded out with things Elena had tried and disliked. Mikey and Gerard weren’t as picky, maybe because they rarely drank tea. Opening it, he waved his hand over the mess of tea bags, and Frank simply looked down, not moving. 

“What kind of tea are you interested in?”

“Uh… anything will do, if it has enough honey in it.” Gerard nodded, pulling out two of a kind he didn’t absolutely hate, even though he had to poke through the mess to find the second. Frank practically bounced on his toes, like he had something else to say but didn’t want to be rude. “I can’t have milk in it either.”

“Okay.” He wasn’t pushing for details, but Frank seemed hell-bent on providing them anyways. 

“I can’t have dairy, or I shouldn’t anyways, not unless I want to get sick from that on top of the pneumonia I’m already gonna get, probably.” Gerard simply gaped at him, not sure why he was sharing so much information, but finding himself trying to make some sense of it anyways. “And I don’t eat meat,” he added, almost like an afterthought.

It was a lot for Gerard to process and he found himself spewing back just as many questions. “Wait… hang on, okay. No dairy. Can’t have dairy? But meat is a don’t, not a can’t? I wasn’t planning on putting meat in your tea, but it’s good to know, I guess. What do you mean about pneumonia? Are you still cold?”

He had done this strange dance where he’d lifted the kettle to see if it had water in it and then lit the burner underneath it, then realized Frank was potentially still in danger of getting sick and moved towards him. He was about to gently grab Frank to direct him back towards the couch with it’s warmth and blankets when he remembered the issue with touching and germs, so he froze, his hands a few inches away from Frank’s shoulders. They both stood there, staring at Gerard’s hands frozen in the air until Frank cleared his throat and Gerard dropped them to his side. His face was warm, he could feel it.

“You know, when you get all pink like that, it’s almost like your face is trying to match your hair.” Frank was laughing, Gerard could hear it in his voice, and he looked up, eyes wide. He hadn’t meant to stare at the ground, but apparently that was his go-to maneuver around Frank, who was currently taking advantage of Gerard’s shocked silence by continuing to talk.

“Seriously. You get embarrassed by everything, and it’s adorable.” He sounded like he was on the verge of giggling, but Gerard could clearly see that he was trying to keep it together. “But really, I’m okay. I just get sick a lot. That’s why I couldn’t go home. My mom would have chewed me out for an hour just for going outside when there was even a chance of rain. Like, what am I supposed to do? Not go outside because my immune system is shitty and I could get sick at any moment? Fuck no.” 

Gerard was about to laugh, he really was, but then he watched Frank’s expression completely shift, like he’d suddenly realized how right his mom was. It was like all the humor had suddenly flooded out of the situation, his face dry and pinched, almost guilty. Gerard didn’t understand, so he just turned back to the tea, letting Frank’s emotions settle while he went about opening the tea bags. 

Silence filled the kitchen until the kettle had started howling in a way that made Gerard remember precisely why he hated tea. One time they’d gone out and Mikey had insisted that tea was the cure to all of their hangover woes; he’d managed to fall asleep on the couch while the kettle was boiling and let it screech throughout the apartment until Gerard had crawled his hungover ass to the stove and turned it off. The sound still made him wince, and he turned it off before it could get too loud. They let the tea steep, not speaking as they waited, though Gerard did pull out the honey for Frank and the milk for himself, setting both on the counter. After a few more minutes of quiet, he went about fixing the tea, moving Frank’s closer to his edge of the counter so that he could pick it up without touching Gerard. He put the milk away and cast one more sad glance at his cold, unused coffee pot, and then led Frank back to the couch. 

Gerard still had no idea what the whole point of Frank being here was or what they were supposed to be talking about. As far as he was concerned, Frank had explained himself when he said he didn’t like to be touched, and he didn’t owe Gerard anything else. Sure, Gerard still had a ton of questions, a lot of which he’d asked immediately after Frank’s explanation, but Frank didn’t have to give him answers, no matter how much Gerard wanted them.

The silence was still dragging on painfully, even now that they were both on the couch, cups of tea clutched in their hands. Gerard looked up at Frank and found him curled up like when he’d first came back up to the apartment, only this time he was staring into his mug like it was about to tell him something. He was going to die of awkwardness if Frank didn’t speak up soon, he knew it, and then Mikey would come back and he’d be dead and his family would blame Frank for his death when it wasn’t Frank’s fault, not really. It would be for the best if Gerard hurried Frank out of the apartment instead of ruining his life by keeling over from sheer social disfunction. Gerard took a breath to tell him he didn’t have to explain himself and that prompted Frank to look up at him. 

“I’m sorry.”

Gerard didn’t understand what he was apologizing for. Maybe for paying attention to his tea? Or maybe he was apologizing for having to come over because he couldn’t go home, and now they were apparently locked into an awkward cycle for the rest of eternity. Gerard didn’t say any of that, he just raised an eyebrow and asked Frank what he was sorry for. 

“Well for one, the coffee thing last week. I know I said earlier that I wasn’t sorry, but I am. I’ve just… got this thing where I’m an asshole.” He paused, looking at Gerard, who noticed that the corner of his mouth was twitching. “I had a feeling it would get under your skin and I took advantage of it.”

Gerard shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. It was just a cup of coffee.” He failed to mention that the cup was still sitting where Addie had set it on a shelf above his desk. He wasn’t starting a collection of snarky coffee cups, even though he had set the one from that afternoon next to it on a whim. It didn’t mean anything. 

“I know… I just, I don’t know. I feel like it upset you more than I’d meant for it to, or maybe I meant to at first, but…” Frank trailed off, and Gerard had to resist the urge to push him to continue, because he really wanted to know what could possibly be behind his change in attitude. “I didn’t know you would take it so personally.”

“I mean, yeah.” He shrugged again, feeling a bit like that was the only gesture he was capable of making anymore. “You kind of insulted me.”

“I’m not explaining this right.” Frank shook his head, setting his tea on the small table next to the couch. “I know I insulted you, but I didn’t think you would be so upset by it, and I definitely didn’t expect to care.”

Gerard raised his eyebrows in surprise and the frowned in confusion. “Why do you care?”

Frank looked at him, his dark hair hanging over his face and starting to curl up slightly as it dried. He maintained eye contact for a second and then dropped his gaze to the floor. “I don’t know.” 

Gerard could tell that it was a lie, deep in his chest, the same way he knew exactly when Mikey was trying to hide something from him. He sighed, letting Frank stare at the ground as he sipped at his own tea. It really wasn’t that horrible, it just wasn’t coffee. It lacked some of the substance of it, even with honey and milk. After another moment of silence, he eventually broke. 

“Look, what I don’t understand is why you’re so back and forth. You insult me via coffee cup, and then you buy me a drink. You barely acknowledge my existence when I’m trying to apologize, and then you ask my TA questions about me. It’s confusing, it doesn’t make any sense, and things that don’t make any sense drive me mad, so if you could just give me some kind of explanation then maybe I could sleep at night.”

Frank looked almost hurt at the words, like Gerard was accusing him of something. He seemed to curl up further into himself, if that were even possible, and then shrugged and mumbled something that Gerard couldn’t understand. Still, Gerard waited, though it was practically killing him to do so, and eventually Frank turned to him. 

“I got freaked out. And then you apologized so I felt bad about freaking out.” 

“Yes, but why did you freak out? I don’t believe the germ thing.”

“What germ thing? I never said…” Frank sighed again, shaking his head. “No, I said something like that. Not that, not exactly.”

“Then what?” Gerard knew he was pushing, but he was losing his patience. Frank’s face shifted through about ten different emotions from hesitation to suspicion all the way to resignation. At the end of it all, he shook his head like he was clearing his thoughts and then took a deep breath and pushed up the sleeves of Gerard’s sweatshirt, holding out his forearms.

Gerard was afraid to look down, afraid to see something he didn’t want to see, but when he gave in, all he saw was pale skin covered in tattoos. Glancing up at Frank with a confused look on his face, he shook his head. 

“I don’t—" 

Frank cut him off. “They’re for protection.”

“Protection against what, exactly?” Gerard was looking at the tattoos again, his mug held off to the side so he could lean in a little closer. He so badly wanted to touch them, to trace over the patterns that he was inspecting, but he didn’t know what was going on and still felt wary about touching Frank without express permission.

“Um, against people, and their feelings.” Frank was studying his face, watching as Gerard’s brow furrowed as he tried to understand. “I feel feelings.”

“You feel feelings.” The repetition was more from confusion than anything else. “You feel… feelings.” He looked back down at the tattoos, as if they would reveal the piece he was missing. Everyone felt feelings, that was just a redundant statement. Whatever Frank was trying to tell him, he wasn't getting. He shook his head again and looked up at Frank's, prompting a frustrated huff from him.

"I'm... an empath. Or whatever. I feel other people's feelings."

Gerard stared at him. Gerard stared at him and didn't say a word, and Frank didn't elaborate. The only sound in the room was the sound of Gerard's mug falling from his hand and shattering on the floor. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two months is a long time. Since I last posted, my boss quit (which left me the most senior member in accounting), I got a promotion, someone from corporate flew in to clean up all of our processes, and I went on a week-long road trip to watch FIATP four times. I’m so sorry that this update suffered because of all my other responsibilities. The good news is that it’s out now, it’s the longest chapter yet, and I’m actually really happy with it. The bad news is that I will likely not update for another month. There’s a huge deadline coming up at work, on top of an auditor coming in to review that we’re following company procedure, and I’m trying to get something done for BBB. I know it sucks, especially given the ending of this chapter, so I fully understand if you’re mad, but I will try to come back as soon as I can. I am NOT abandoning this; we’re in it until the end. I’ll be back with another update before you know it. Feel free to swing by my [tumblr](http://mousefrnk.tumblr.com/) in the mean time and send me any questions, comments, or concerns. You all rock.


	8. I Feel Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank explains the empath thing (mostly, anyways), and Gerard has a lot of questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, if there were ever a time for “previously on I’ll Let You Down” I guess it would be now. However, I'm gonna give you all the benefit of the doubt and assume that you wouldn't be here if you weren't prepared, so without further ado, here's the long awaited chapter eight.

“Wait, _what?”_

When understanding dawned on him, he looked at Frank again, eyes wide. He spoke slowly, like he still wasn’t getting it, like he wanted each and every word to be completely clear so that there was no possible misunderstanding.

“You feel other people’s feelings.”

After a long beat of eye contact, Frank nodded, almost as if he was afraid to confirm it even though he’d been the one to say it in the first place. “I do.”

“That’s…” Gerard didn’t know what he was trying to say. A gift like Frank’s was almost unheard of. Though there had been whispers that empaths, true empaths, had existed throughout history, no one in the modern day possessed it – at least not as far as Gerard knew. Even if he’d never heard of such a thing, it wasn’t impossible. He would never claim to know everything about magic or all the forms it could take. Bad things happened when people made that mistake, Gerard knew that even more than most. His gaze fell to the floor and when he realized that the cup he’d smashed was one of Mikey’s favorites he cursed under his breath.

Frank must have mistakenly thought the curse was directed at him because Gerard could see him shaking his head out of the corner of his eye.

“It’s not something you have to worry about or anything. Really. It’s not new. It’s been this way all my life, I just—”

“Seriously?” Gerard could feel how wide his eyes had grown as he looked back up from the shattered porcelain to Frank. “But, you can’t have… we would have heard…”

Frank vehemently shook his head again. “My mom was very careful not to let anyone know, once she had it mostly figured out. She was afraid they would take me, to run studies or something.”

Gerard just nodded, understanding that fear. There was so much he wanted to know that he actually had to physically bite his tongue to keep from attempting to ask Frank ten questions at once. To distract himself, he carefully got up from the couch and went about cleaning up the broken cup and spilt tea. His mind was spinning, his thoughts running wild, but he focused on breathing to calm himself so he could arrange them in an orderly succession. He set about brewing some coffee, craving the caffeine to get through this conversation, but also needing the time to collect himself. After a few moments he returned to the couch, fresh cup of coffee clutched in both hands to prevent a second shocked spill if Frank told him another unbelievable thing. By the time he met Frank’s nervous gaze again, Gerard was slightly more composed.

By contrast, Frank looked confused and almost frightened, which could probably be partially attributed to the fact that Gerard had disappeared off to the kitchen for five minutes without saying a word, and he grimaced a little at the realization of his lack of manners.

“Sorry, I should have…” Gerard trailed off and waved his hand, knowing what he was apologizing for but not willing to waste the time to find the right words. He was eager to ask Frank all of the questions currently burning on his tongue. As he opened his mouth to ask the first one, he stopped himself. Frank had confessed —why he trusted Gerard of all people with this revelation was a mystery— but that didn’t mean he was giving free rein to interrogate him about it.

“Can I— I mean, do you mind if I ask you some questions?”

Frank nodded immediately. “Yeah, yeah. That’s totally okay. I don’t know that I’ll have answers. I barely understand some of it, and I definitely don’t know why it’s a thing. No one in my family has ever shown magic like this.”

Gerard just shook his head. “Magic isn’t really hereditary, not in the way hair color is, though a lot of people think that. It seems to come from proximity actually, from the people you meet and places you go, from the things you’re interested in.” He paused, biting his lip as he tried to think of an example that wasn’t pulled from a journal Frank wouldn’t be remotely interested in.

In the end, he settled for making up his own. “If you grew up in a bakery, and you didn’t talk to anyone outside of the bakery or go anywhere else at all, you might have the ability to bake things perfectly without actually measuring the ingredients, or be able to create complicated frosting designs at incredible speeds. It would almost certainly have something to do with baking, since that’s what you were around most. It’s like… an exchange of energy with the things around you, which is why it seems to be a hereditary thing, almost.

“So what you’re saying is my emotional touch issues are a product of my environment?”

“Er…” Gerard bit his lip. He didn’t know if that’s _exactly_ how it worked, and he didn’t want to give Frank the wrong information. “I’m not completely sure. I mean, it’s definitely not my area of specialty. I met someone at a conference last fall that gave a really interesting talk, and it was all about the concept of inheriting magic. It was this whole—” He was rambling instead of answering the question and he caught himself, immediately pausing and looking guiltily at Frank. “Yes. That’s the theory.”

“Interesting.”

“But you said you’ve been like this your whole life, right?”

“Yes?” Frank looked confused at the question. Gerard cleared his throat like he always did before he made a hypothesis.

“That would lead me to think that something in your environment when you were very young was strong enough to affect you permanently. It would have to be, to set your magic on a particular path that early.”

“How young?”

“Well, I can’t say for sure—”

“Like, before birth young?”

“Maybe?” Gerard’s answer came out more like a question. “Like I said, I’m not an expert.”

“Interesting,” Frank repeated. He wasn’t looking at Gerard anymore, and his expression was almost sad, like he was remembering something upsetting. His expression cleared when he turned his face; the smile that replaced his frown made it difficult to remember that there had even been sadness to detect in the first place. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to ask the questions, that’s supposed to be your job right now, isn’t it?”

“I guess it is,” Gerard said, grinning nervously. When Frank was smiling at him like that, it was hard not to respond in turn. “Can you explain to me how it works?”

“Dude, no, I literally just told you–”

“No, no.” Gerard waved his hand, cutting off Frank mid-sentence. “Not why it works. How it works. What are you experiencing when, you know, it happens?”

Frank stared at him with one eyebrow cocked up, obviously missing the point Gerard was trying to make, but apparently it was enough that Gerard had asked for it. “Uh… I guess. It’s not really a ‘when’ it happens, it’s more of a constant. Or it was. It is. Mostly was, but sometimes is.”

“Okay, hold on. Constant? You’re constantly feeling other people’s emotions.” It wasn’t so much of a question as it was a bewildered repetition of what Frank had already said, but he was nice enough to humor Gerard, just the slightest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “And what do you mean was?”

“Well, it’s better now. I figured out the rune thing when I was sixteen and then—”

“Rune thing?”

“Oh.” Frank grinned sheepishly at him, probably on account of realizing that rather than truly answering Gerard’s questions, he was just generating new ones. It was like each new bit of information spawned five new things Gerard wanted to ask about. “Maybe I should start at the beginning?”

“Maybe you should.”

“Okay, okay.” He was still smiling at Gerard, his head tipped down and a slight hint of embarrassment in the way his mouth turned up.

Gerard hid his interest in that by sipping at his coffee, which had thankfully cooled enough that he could drink it without burning himself, though he probably would have drank it anyways.

“So,” Frank started, taking a deep breath and sitting up a little straighter. “When I was little, like really fucking little, like… I don’t even think I was talking yet, I used to get sick all the time. My mom just thought I had a really bad immune system, but there was this pattern to it that she didn’t see for a long time. It was every time she was really happy, or really sad, or really angry. Really anything, honestly. Must have sucked for her, to hear her talk about it. She would get home pissed off from work and I would be throwing up or curled up in bed, so she couldn’t even be pissed off properly.”

There was a little laugh at that, and Gerard managed to smile back when Frank glanced at him, though he was almost too engrossed in listening to react correctly.

“It took awhile for her to figure out that any and all strong emotions from her were making me sick, and then for awhile she thought I was just really in tune with her moods. But she was having someone watch me while she was at work, some teenage girl that lived down the street or something, and one day she broke up with her boyfriend. When my mom got home, the babysitter was crying and I had a fever even though I’d been fine when she’d left, and as soon as the sitter was gone, I started getting better. That was the first clear sign that it wasn’t just with my mom.”

He paused, looking at Gerard and seeming to realize that there was a cup of coffee in his hands. There was a look of realization on his face and then he was turning to get his own tea, frowning when he sipped it.

“Cold?”

“Yeah, but… it’s fine.”

“You sure? I can heat it up, or make you a new one, if you want.”

Frank just shook his head. “No, I’m okay. Thanks, though.” He looked at Gerard, a strange glint in his eye, his expression otherwise completely serious. “I’m a little afraid you’ll try to get revenge on me for making you drop your cup.”

“What? I will not!” Gerard had practically sputtered out his reply, but Frank was already giggling. “I’m not even angry, I swear.” He paused, realizing that he didn’t have to explain it, that Frank could sense his emotions and would know that on his own. “You can feel that, though, right? You know I’m not angry.”

Frank was still fighting through the tail end of his laughter, but he was also shaking his head. “No, actually, I can’t,” he said, sobering up. “I could have. A week ago, maybe.” As he spoke, he was rolling up the sleeve of his sweatshirt, of Gerard’s sweatshirt, revealing the tattoo he’d had gauze taped over the day Gerard had shown up to apologize to him. “But then I got this, and it protects me. It acts like a shield, I guess?”

Gerard couldn’t help but lean in closer, trying to get close enough to inspect the tattoo without coming near enough to Frank to touch him. He had tucked the coffee cup safely in his lap but he still had his fingers wrapped around it, afraid that if he let them free they would touch Frank of their own volition.

“How does it work?” He looked up at Frank, and he was close enough to see him swallow before responding.

“It’s a protection rune. You can see it…” Frank pointed to set of intersecting black lines in the center of the tattoo, and Gerard couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen them before.

They were subtle, crisp lines crossing over and through each other like a knot made of ink, hidden in the middle of a colorful design, and he supposed that was the point. The urge to touch the ink was maddening, but Gerard managed not to, though his fingers were aching with the pressure of keeping them against the cup.

When Frank spoke again, Gerard couldn’t bring himself to look up from the tattoo. “I’ve been going to the same artist for years, and she doesn’t ask questions anymore, and she’s really good about working them in without making it obvious what they are. It’s not always this one, there are other ones.”

Frank broke off and showed Gerard his other arm, which had more tattoos than this one. There were plenty of small runes worked into the skin there, as decoration for larger designs, small details that no one would notice if they weren’t intentionally looking for them. It wasn’t the same rune over and over — there were several variants, some that even meant different forms of protection. He wanted so badly to touch them, to inspect all of the runes covering Frank’s skin, to catalogue them and ask about each one.

He glanced up at Frank and found that his gaze was on Gerard’s face, and Gerard realized that while he had managed to keep his hands to himself, he’d subconsciously scooted closer, getting up on his knees to crouch next to Frank so he could see the tattoos more clearly. Frank’s face was only a few inches away from his, his eyes bright and intent, his dark hair drying in a wild curl over his forehead. Gerard knew he should move away, but moving away meant losing this chance to look at the tattoos so closely, and his curiosity got the better of him.

“Why these runes?” Gerard’s voice was low, even to his own ears, like he was afraid he’d speak too loudly and spook Frank by being so close, but Frank just gave a tiny shrug.

“The first one was an accident. We were learning about runes in class, when I was like sixteen or something, and I wasn’t feeling great. I got sick a lot when other people were feeling things around me, because it was a proximity thing. Some girl two seats back would come to school after fighting with her parents that morning and I’d have to try not to cry, or the teacher would be having a bad day and I would feel it, too, and get pissed off at nothing. Stupid shit like that. It was hard to tell where it was coming from, because in high school, everyone is emotional all the time. There were days I couldn’t even make it through and I’d have to go home early. The staff was all used to it — they just thought I had a shitty immune system, because it was kind of true. I couldn’t filter out everyone’s emotions, and if you think about emotions like germs… whatever. The point is, we were learning about runes and I was trying not to throw up because people were feeling a lot that day, and I started drawing on my skin with markers to distract myself. I saw this one rune, on the board and thought it looked cool, and it was supposed to be for protection from ill will, or for peace, or something. I drew it on my arm and everything…” Frank paused, shaking his head at the memory, “everything just stopped.”

“And then what happened?”

Frank met his gaze again, something in the tilt of his eyes coming off a bit mischievous. “And then I threw up.” He laughed, the sound light and startling, and Gerard couldn’t help but sit back a little. “I made it to the bathroom first, but it was the first time I had ever not felt the emotions of anyone but myself. It was a relief, kind of, but I also felt incredibly alone? I don’t know, I just know it was the last thing I could take that day, and I went home.”

Though he’d just looked at Gerard, his eyes had fallen away. It was obvious from the tilt of his head that he was lost in the memory of it, and Gerard bit his lip, wanting him to continue but not wanting to break the silence. After a few long moments of Gerard trying to sit as still as possible, Frank smiled to himself and continued on his own.

“The school had called my mom — they always did when I left — so she was home when I got there. I told her I had found a cure, and that I couldn’t feel anything, and she didn’t get it, even when I explained it to her. It wasn’t until she touched my forehead to see if I was actually sick and I couldn’t tell if she was worried or suspicious that she really believed me. She started crying, and then I started crying, and she went out to run to the store, which I knew meant that she was having a moment and needed to buy cigarettes even though she swore she had quit, and she came back with a cake.”

Frank shrugged again, sitting back against the couch and picking up his cold tea to drain it before setting the empty cup down again. Gerard didn’t speak, even though Frank had stopped. He felt like there was more, and Frank just needed a moment to put it into words, and he took the opportunity to sit back on his side of the couch.

“It didn’t last.”

At this distance, Gerard wasn’t really tempted to keep looking at Frank’s tattoos, which was perfect because his sleeves had fallen to cover them anyways. Instead, his eyes locked on Frank’s face so he saw the way he bit at his lip, the way he stared at the floor as he kept talking. “I think it was only a few days before the ink started to fade, and then I started to feel emotions again. It was dulled, at first, but it was coming back. I tried drawing over the rune again, thinking that maybe it was about keeping the ink fresh, but it didn’t work, not until I got desperate and drew it on my other arm.”

“Well, yeah. That’s not surprising.” The length of time that the rune had worked didn’t surprise Gerard in the least, enough that he felt the need to fill the pause that Frank had left when he stopped speaking. Frank just looked blankly at him, and Gerard continued, clarifying. “I mean, that’s basic runes. A rune is only as permanent as the medium it’s written in.” When Frank tilted his head to the side, one eyebrow raised, Gerard realized that not everyone had been as interested in runes at sixteen as he had been. “And you obviously figured that out.”

“Yeah,” Frank nodded and replied, a hint of laughter in his voice. “I figured it out. I was only in high school, they hadn’t told us about all that. But I tried it with different colors, with different types of markers, even with sizes. One time I covered my entire stomach in this massive version and it looked fucking ridiculous. It showed through all of my white shirts and my mom was so mad, and it didn’t even work all that well. I probably got the symbol wrong, I don’t know. I figured out that permanent marker worked best, and color didn’t really matter aside from the fact that different inks last different lengths of time.”

Gerard nodded at that. It was fascinating how Frank had gone through all of the same experiments with longevity that the research community had, just on a smaller scale.

“I was disappointed with the color thing when I found out,” Gerard said. “It would make things so much more interesting, aesthetically, not that that’s the goal.”

“No, of course not.” Frank grinned and shook his head. “Anyways, I had to draw it on a different place each time, I couldn’t just draw over the same one, but I could go back to that spot later. It was like it needed a breathing period or something.”

“Did you ever try using different runes?”

“Oh, yeah, totally. I did some research, very basic. I went through all the main peace-like ones in high school.” He held out his hand, counting the runes off on his fingers. “Peace, protection, quiet, privacy, defense, safety. There were a lot of them that didn’t work as well, but mostly they were the same. I even tried finding some in different languages. One time I accidentally got one that must have been a mistranslation or something, and it actually made everything worse. I was in bed for like a week after that and I decided to just stick with the ones I knew.”

Frank’s mouth was quirked up at the edge, this crooked half-grin that made Gerard stare.

“And the tattoos? When did you move to that instead of the markers?”

“Oh, shit. I had the idea almost immediately, but my mom refused to give me permission to get a tattoo. Basically I had to wait her out until I was eighteen and I didn’t need her permission anymore.”

Gerard had so many questions about that. He hated needles, and even the idea of someone else getting tattoos made him squirm if he thought about it too long, but he was pretty certain that Elena would have let him get one, if he had wanted. He had no idea what his mom would have said though, but given her eccentric nature that he could remember, she probably would have been okay with it, too.

“But then you turned eighteen.”

“But then I turned eighteen. Like I said, I’ve had the same tattoo artist for years, but you should have seen the look on the first guy’s face. He kept asking me all these questions and I couldn’t just tell him, you know?”

Gerard didn’t know, but he nodded anyways, lip caught between his teeth so he wouldn’t speak and interrupt.

“Anyways, I got through it, and I hoped that since tattoos are permanent, it would be one and done. Unfortunately, it wore off after a few months — the rune, not the tattoo – and I had to get a new one. For awhile I kept going to someone new each time, trying not to raise anyone’s suspicions, but then I got this one.” He paused, pushing up his sleeve and pointing at the massive design running down the back of his elbow and forearm. There were guns and roses, and a lady in robes, and there was so much color that it definitely drew his attention away from the small runes covering every inch of Frank’s skin that wasn’t part of the main designs. “The artist was okay with me coming in every few weeks to get another one added, and she didn’t even look at me weird. Eventually there was no more skin to fill and I just went back to her for the next one. She’s used to it by now.”

The sleeves of Gerard’s sweatshirt had fallen down again from where Frank had pushed them up, and Frank was fidgeting with them as he spoke. Gerard pulled his gaze away from the shifting of Frank’s hands and looked at his face instead, trying for an encouraging smile.

“So you get a tattoo and that’s it? No emotions except for your own.” He didn’t wait for Frank’s reply now that he’d gathered enough information to be able to form better questions. “How… exactly, do you feel things? I mean, is it like your own feelings are influenced, or can you definitely tell they’re not yours? Is it only when you’re around people?Can you feel people through walls? How is touch involved? Does that make it stronger? Do the tattoos make it all go away or is it just dulled out? Why are you laughing?”

Frank had his hand pressed to his mouth, trying to stifle his giggles and immediately failing once Gerard called attention to it. When Gerard just stared at him, he made a face like he was trying to contain his amusement, and shrugged. “When someone is standing next to me, I have a stronger read on them than when they’re standing across the room, and when someone touches me, it’s kind of overwhelming. Like, that’s all I can focus on.”

Gerard nodded again, the information fitting in with what he had already suspected.

“But the tattoos,” he prompted, still missing that piece.

“The tattoos,” Frank started to explain, leaning a little bit forward as he did, “wear off in that order. It protects me from things closer to me longer. Usually touch is the last thing to go.”

“Usually?”

Now Frank was smiling nervously, but not at Gerard. His gaze was directed at the couch, and Gerard followed it, like maybe he was actually looking at something instead of just avoiding eye contact. Unfortunately, there was just the couch.

“I mean,” Frank started, scratching the back of his head and still avoiding Gerard’s gaze, “Sometimes it doesn’t work out like that. But for the most part, yeah. As long as the tattoo hasn’t completely worn off, I can’t feel anything stronger than when someone is standing next to me, even if they touch me. I try not to let it get that far, though.”

Gerard nodded, trying to take it all in. It was so much information — he was definitely going to have to write about it so that he could get his thoughts in order. He finished what was left of his coffee, the heat of it worn off from the chill of the room, and he absent-mindedly wondered if he had forgotten to turn the heat up.

“You’re like a living, breathing testament to rune research.”

Frank laughed, nodding. “Yeah, I know. I’ve talked to Addie a little bit about it. She doesn’t know everything, of course, like she doesn’t know about my magic, but she knows I’m interested in runes. Even suggested that I just talk to you directly and get to the most reliable source.”

Gerard watched as Frank did this thing that completely classified as a nervous tic, tucking his hair back behind his ear only for it to fall into his face again. If Gerard didn’t know better, he might have thought he was embarrassed. He didn’t understand why, though. It made sense why Frank had been so adamant about apologizing now, about explaining himself. Gerard was the person who could probably help Frank the most.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Frank’s gaze, which had dropped to the floor, lifted so he could meet Gerard’s again.

“I… I thought you could help me.”

“Help you how?”

“I think that maybe, with your knowledge on runes, you could help me find one that would make it stop.”

“Make it stop?”

“The empath thing. I want it to stop for good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! The last time we spoke, I said that it might be another month before I’m able to update again, and I believe it’s actually been seven. Whoops. I’m so sorry. I really am. This chapter has a lot of world-building in it, and believe it or not, I wanted to put more. I’m going to make my excuses about work and life. My wife actually told me that she thought I was never coming back to ILYD but I am. I still have plans, and it’s actually going to be a really long fic by the end of it, probably. I apologize for how slowly it’s going, but I did put out two other fics in the meantime. Hopefully now that BBB and NaNoWriMo are both over (as is the holiday season), updates will be whatever the opposite of “fewer and further between” is. As always, give kudos/comment/send me invasive asks over on [tumblr](http://mousefrnk.tumblr.com/) if you feel so inclined. Thank you for reading!  
> P.S. Thanks to my rock star betas [Cat](http://softfrnk.tumblr.com/) and [Mackenzie](http://awsugar.tumblr.com/). You're both amazing.  
> P.P.S. A super duper thanks to my emo son [Alex](http://bleakweekend.tumblr.com/) and my wife Lindsey for stepping up when I thought it had been way too long since updating to ask Cat and Mac to beta.  
> P.P.P.S. Thanks like a billion to Lindsey in general for letting me ruin her life with MCR. Sorry. I love you.


	9. Guilttripping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard "suffers" Frank’s attempts to get him to help.

Two weeks later found Gerard and Mikey sitting around their apartment on one of those rare nights when Mikey didn’t have something better to do elsewhere.

It wasn’t that Mikey didn’t want to spend time with his brother, Gerard knew that; it was just that Mikey was one of those people who could regain energy simply through being around others. Gerard was definitely not one of those people. He could handle spending time with his students and other members of the faculty, but that was something he’d grown used to because it was expected of him. If it was any other form of socialization, he almost felt like he had to warm up for it.

It had made for an interesting two weeks since the storm, when Frank had started popping up unexpectedly. Thankfully these encounters had been restricted to campus, and either the tattooed grad student didn’t remember where Gerard lived or found that following him to his house was too invasive, even for Frank. Regardless, Gerard was grateful for the safe zone.

“So,” Mikey said as he lost yet another round of the video game he was playing, dropping the controller to the coffee table as a signal that he was done with that diversion. “What did lover boy bring you today?”

Gerard looked up from the textbook cradled in his lap, nearly dropping the pen he was making notes with and ending up with ink all over his hands in his efforts to catch it.

“Who?” Gerard tried playing stupid but he knew his brother meant Frank, and Mikey knew he knew, so it wasn’t a very good attempt. Mikey didn’t say anything else, just stared at Gerard until he gave in and sighed.

“Coffee. Again. And it was perfect.” Gerard knew he sounded whiny, but he couldn’t help it. Each and every day it was getting harder and harder to resist Frank.

“Hmm,” Mikey hummed, the sound more displeased than melodic.

Gerard was pretty sure it irked Mikey that Frank had recognized and memorized Gerard’s favorite coffee order so quickly. After Mikey had started working the cafe in Elena’s store, it had taken a while before he figured out Gerard’s true favorite, the one he was almost too embarrassed to admit aloud because it barely counted as coffee. Mikey knew Gerard, of course he did — the problem was that Gerard would happily drink any variation on the beverage that Mikey handed him.

Frank had figured out the hazelnut white mocha combination in a week.

Still, Mikey didn’t say anything about it if it did upset him, and Gerard knew he wouldn’t. He got too much glee out of the concept of one of Gerard’s students following him around and bringing him hot beverages and baked goods.

Gerard hadn’t told him why Frank was doing it on account of being sworn to secrecy and all, a promise he still might have broken were it not for the actual, literal, magical swear Gerard had insisted on, the one that would result in tragedy for Gerard if he broke it. Mikey was Gerard’s oldest and most trusted confidant, and it was hell not telling him the truth. But he had promised, and it could put Frank in harm’s way if he broke that promise, not to mention Gerard would die.

Since Mikey didn’t know any better, he was left to conclude that Frank had a giant crush and was trying to entice Gerard through edible favors. Gerard didn’t bother correcting him. It wasn’t because he liked entertaining the fantasy — truthfully he hadn’t even let himself consider it — but because he didn’t have the truth to give him instead, and if he made something up, Mikey would know he was lying.

“When are you going to give him what he wants and just go on a date with him already?”

“Mikey —”

“No, honestly.” Mikey sat up and moved from the chair to the other end of the couch Gerard was sitting on, putting his feet in his brother’s lap like he always did. There was a momentary scuffle of Gerard pushing his brother’s feet down only for Mikey to put them up again. The cycle repeated itself a few times before Gerard gave up and let them stay there because he was weak and let Mikey get away with everything.

“Anyways,” Mikey started again with a huff, like Gerard had been the irritating and personal-space-invading one in the situation. “Would it really be that bad?”

Gerard frowned and considered it, not in the context of a date but in the context of the truth, of helping Frank find the most powerful protection rune possible. He just didn’t understand how someone with that much natural power could ever want to give it up.

“I don’t know, Mikey.” He shrugged. “It just doesn’t feel right.”

“Yeah, I could see that.” Mikey jutted his chin out and nodded before tipping his head to the side. “But he’s a grad student, he’s almost as old as you are. And he’s not even in your department.”

Gerard nodded, only halfway paying attention, and then he stopped suddenly, looking at his brother.

“Who are you and what have you done with Mikey?”

“Shut up.”

“No, seriously.” Gerard pushed Mikey’s feet down again, sitting up straighter this time so he couldn’t put them back. “Two weeks ago, I brought him here and you were all ‘be careful, I have a weird feeling, be careful.’”

“People change their minds. I was being careful.”

“Obviously.” Gerard resisted the urge to let his mouth twitch up at Mikey’s attempt to lighten the mood, but only barely. “And now you want me to go on a date with him.”

“Look, Gee, all I’m saying is that it’s been like twelve thousand months since Adam—”

“Seven, but yeah, close.”

“— and as far as I know, you haven’t even looked at anyone else.”

“I haven’t looked at Adam either. It’s kind of hard to do that when he, y’know, fled the country suddenly.”

“He moved to the closest major city for work, Gerard. An hour away by bus is hardly the end of the earth.”

“Well, he could have at least said goodbye.”

“Yeah, and you could have at least taken a night off once in awhile to go on a date with him.”

“Ow, Mikey.”

To Mikey’s credit, Gerard could see that he looked a little ashamed for using the same words that Adam had during his and Gerard’s final fight, the last one before he’d up and left. Mikey kept going though, so he obviously didn’t feel that guilty.

“You know I’m right.”

Gerard sighed, wishing that he could just tell Mikey the truth, or that it was actually as simple as Frank having a crush on him.

“Yeah, I do.”

* * *

Gerard stayed up all night going over the whys and why nots of the situation. He smoked all his cigarettes before the sun even started peeking over the horizon, and he was left tapping his fingers on all of the surfaces he could reach. Eventually Mikey snapped at him to stop. Gerard, not realizing Mikey was awake, nearly spilt his coffee, and he apologized profusely to Mikey’s back as he stormed off.

He was ready to go early for once and Beth gave him such a strange look that he felt the need to promise her that he wasn’t sick or anything.

He was jittery, which probably had something to do with the lack of sleep and the way he’d tried to substitute coffee for it, but that didn’t stop him from visiting Addie at the coffee cart before heading up to his office. Gerard thought he could manage to act normal during that interaction but she looked at him kind of oddly too and he gave up the act, just shaking his head when she asked if she could help. After disengaging from her, he hurried up to his office and shut the door to avoid further social missteps.

Gerard somehow made it through the rest of the day without further incident, though he almost cried when Addie showed up to class with another cup of coffee for him. She seemed to hesitate before she gave it to him, apparently recognizing that she was aiding and abetting him in his caffeine binge, but in the end she handed it over.

He didn’t relax the entire day, likely a side effect of all the coffee, but it was more than just that. The conversation he knew he would be having at the end of the day weighed heavily on him, pushing into his thoughts whenever he let his guard down for even a moment.

When he was done with his afternoon office hours, he took his time packing up to leave though he knew it would make no difference. Frank would wait for him. He considered trying to sneak out an exit that didn’t take him through the lobby and past the coffee cart where Frank worked, but he figured that was just putting off the inevitable.

He dragged himself down to the lobby, not at all ready for what he was about to do. Frank seemed the hopeful type and Gerard, the person who could probably help him the most, was about to tell him that wouldn’t help. He didn’t think it was going to go over particularly well.

As suspected, Frank was waiting for him downstairs, but he wasn’t alone. Gerard’s stomach filled with an apprehension that he didn’t understand as he realized Frank was speaking to someone else, someone around Mikey’s height. Gerard wouldn’t have recognized him at all were it not for the mass of curly hair cascading down to his shoulders, the same hair that had been just to Frank’s right as he had thrown himself around on stage nearly a month ago.

Gerard was surprised he remembered anything from that night that wasn’t Frank, but there had been the whole thing with the cyber-stalking afterwards, and Gerard had seen pictures of the other members of Sonorous then too. It was normal that Frank would be talking to someone from his band, and Gerard felt a strange sense of relief, an easing of the feeling that had made his stomach tense up in the moments before he recognized the other band member.

Gerard hadn’t stopped moving towards Frank, just slowed a little when he was unsure of the situation. He hadn’t looked away so he caught the exact moment when Frank finally saw him. Gerard was too far away to hear what Frank said to the curly haired guy, but he turned around too, a knowing expression on his face. That confused Gerard, as did the way the guy touched Frank on the shoulder almost reassuringly before making his exit through the doors to the courtyard.

Frank didn’t watch his friend go, just looked at Gerard approaching with that stupid smile of his, the one Gerard thought of whenever he decided not to help. It always made him reconsider.

“So,” Frank said in way of greeting. “What’s the decision today, Professor?”

Gerard grimaced. “I really wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

“But it’s what you are, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes, but you make it sound like a joke.”

Frank snickered at that, setting down the cup of coffee and the pastry bag that were in his hands. He was always really particular about that, about setting his gifts somewhere Gerard could reach instead of handing them over directly. At least now Gerard understood why, mostly. In theory Frank’s most recent tattoo should have kept him safe but Gerard supposed that it was probably habit borne from nearly two decades of not having that protection. He never voiced his suspicions though, so he didn’t know for sure.

Gerard didn’t move to pick up either the coffee or the pastry, though he wanted to. He knew what was in that cup and he craved it, but he refused to be that easy. Frank couldn’t just buy him off with coffee and baked goods. Instead of reaching out, he shoved his hands into his pockets and chewed on his lip.

Frank seemed to sense that he’d crossed a line, flipping his hair out of his eyes and staring Gerard down until he sighed.

“Look, you’re not a joke okay.” If it was an apology, it wasn’t a very genuine one, and Gerard bristled at hearing it.

“Of course I’m not.”

“You’re the one getting your panties in a twist when I was just kidding.”

“My panties aren’t — I’m not even wearing — I don’t own panties.” Gerard was flushed, his face hot. “This is entirely inappropriate.”

Frank giggled as Gerard turned to make sure no one had overheard him talking to a grad student about undergarments. The coast was thankfully clear and Gerard snatched up the coffee and pastry bag before storming outside before anyone could overhear whatever else Frank might think about skewing.

Frank followed, exactly like Gerard had expected him to, his laughter still visible in the crook at the corner of his mouth. Gerard tried to ignore it, but he had to roll his eyes as Frank giggled again and pointed towards the pastry bag.

“Lemon. It’s your favorite, right?”

“How do you even know that?”

Frank wiggled his fingers in some kind of suggestive wave. “Hi, nice to meet you. I’m Frank, and I’m an empath.”

Gerard just fixed him with a stare. “You’re not serious.”

Frank nodded and Gerard scowled.

“What kind of emotion could I possibly even have about the flavor lemon?”

“It’s like…” Frank stuck his tongue out in thought and Gerard looked at the ground. “Like a fond nostalgia, kind of?”

“Oh.” Lemon had been his mother’s favorite flavor, something Gerard always remembered whenever he tasted it. He wasn’t sure he liked the way Frank had come so close to knowing this that he could probably guess the reason. If he guessed, he might ask, and if he asked, well… Gerard didn’t like talking about his mom. The best option was to quickly change the subject and Gerard’s mind went for the closest topic at hand.

“I can’t help you.” He hadn’t even checked to make sure they were alone, away from ears that might overhear what exactly Gerard was refusing to help Frank with. Thankfully they had made it far enough down their usual path that there was no one around.

It was a bit odd to think that they had a usual path, that he and Frank had done anything enough together that there was enough of a history for a usual to exist. Yet, every day Frank showed up to ask Gerard for his help, they would end up walking the same path away from campus that they had the first time, when Frank had apologized after his shift and they’d eventually ended up back at Gerard’s house. It had been two weeks since then.

Frank hadn’t reacted negatively to Gerard’s words, or very much at all. He simply raised an eyebrow and asked, “And why not?”

Gerard shook his head. “I’ve already told you why not.”

“And I’ve already told you all the reasons why you should.” Gerard could see Frank’s anger in the set of his shoulders. He resisted the urge to question him, instead choosing to let him continue what he was saying without interruption. “I could tell you again, Professor, but you’re a smart man. You already know the reasons. So why don’t you do the talking for a change and tell me why you can’t — why you won’t help me.”

“I just… I can’t.”

“Not good enough.” Frank crossed his arms and shook his head, leaving absolutely no question what his thoughts and feelings on the matter were. “I want to know why.”

“I don’t owe you anything.”

“You’re right. But you’ve held out for this long. You told me you would think about it instead of just outright telling me no, and I know people like you. You spend your whole life chasing the next complicated puzzle to solve and you don’t just let a challenge go, not one like what I’m asking of you, not without good reason. You obviously have a good reason, and I want to know what it is.”

“But I don’t owe that to you. My reasons —”

“Are probably good ones. Let’s hear them.”

Gerard stopped walking and turned toward Frank who immediately pressed his jaw forward, almost like he was looking for a fight. He was half a head shorter than Gerard but he didn’t seem it, not right then. Gerard refused to look at him, his words rushing out before Frank could stop him.

“You can’t just bully me into helping you. As far as I know, nothing like this has been done. Ever. Bad things happen when you mess with unknown magic. That’s one of the first things you learn.” Gerard paused again, his thoughts and by consequence his words coming dangerously close to his mother, but he kept them at bay, somehow. “This ability you have, it’s incredibly powerful. If I help you put a stop to it, it could end up backfiring terribly.”

“How?” Frank’s question had interrupted his explanation but it didn’t seem like he was intending to be rude by asking it. Gerard just looked at him, mildly confused by the interruption, and then shook his head before continuing.

“I don’t know how, specifically, but… All of this magical energy is being used each time you read someone else’s emotions. Figuring out how to slow it is one thing but stopping it all together could be disastrous for you. You don’t know how it will affect you until it happens. What if you find out that this ability of yours is tied into the way you communicate with the rest of the world and suddenly you can’t feel anything? Or what if it’s the only release of energy you have and your magic doesn’t adapt and then one day it just builds up too much and —”

“What? You think I’ll explode?” The disbelief in Frank’s voice was very nearly sarcastic and Gerard frowned at it.

“It’s not funny. It could happen. You don’t know.”

“You’re right.” Frank somehow managed to stomp his foot and straighten his spine all at once and Gerard, who had been feeling slightly better about his odds of turning Frank down, felt those odds sink immediately. There was something in Frank’s voice that made it clear he wasn’t going to give up easily despite his speech about Gerard giving him a good reason.

“I’m not…” Frank started, trailing off and biting his lip. “Okay, look. You can walk away from this. You’ve sworn not to tell anyone and I’m safe so long as you don’t decide telling my secret is more important than, y’know, dying, so that part’s fine. But this is my life. This is my future, this is all I have to look forward to. Unless, unless…”

Frank looked almost frantic as he met Gerard’s gaze again, his eyes flashing back and forth. When he picked up again, his voice was quieter, more solemn.

“If you don’t help me, if you won’t even try, I’m always gonna wonder if you could have changed it. I’m always going to wonder if I possibly could have been free of this.”

Frank had started off so fiery, but his fighting energy had seriously weakened by the time he finished talking. Gerard had been prepared to defend himself, to defend his decision, but he couldn’t very well do that now, not when Frank sounded as sad as he did.

Gerard could be insensitive, but he wasn’t a monster. He ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up on its ends, then fixed Frank with a stare. It wasn’t meant to be a pissing contest, but even as dejected as he seemed, Frank refused to back down. Gerard was the one who ended up looking away, obviously defeated.

“You’re right,” Frank repeated. “It could all go horribly wrong and I just won’t know until it happens. But you don’t know what it’s like to have to deal with this and let me fucking tell you, it would probably still be worth it.”

Gerard could see the panic in his eyes, that phenomenal energy that he had sensed in Frank but hadn’t yet seen. He was one of those people who could be incredibly stubborn and demanding when he wanted something badly enough, and here was the proof. Gerard knew he wouldn’t be able to resist anymore if Frank got going with a bit of steam behind him. It was best to get ahead of that if he had any hope of making it out of this conversation without giving in.

“Listen, Frank —”

As Frank squared his shoulders, Gerard’s own sank and his words broke off. The only thing that kept the redhead from losing all dignity in that moment was that he didn’t take a step back like he’d been tempted to.

“No. You listen.” Frank’s eyes were hard as they looked over Gerard, no amount of softness there. “I am tired. This is exhausting. I am a sensitive person, there’s really no way around that, and I probably would be even without the empathy. But this is… this is too much for any one person to handle and I can’t keep it up indefinitely, not even with the tattoos. Eventually I won’t have anywhere else to tattoo. And I think by now you’ve realized how stubborn I can be. It’s not like I’ll just give up if you don’t help me. If you help, at least we can try to avoid the scenario in which I blow up.” There was a small tilt to his lips at the corners that Gerard found infuriating, but he held his tongue and let Frank finish. “I’d really like to avoid being blown up if at all possible.”

Gerard chewed at his lip, considering Frank’s words. There was no one else who knew as much as he did about the subject. He was humble but he wasn’t intentionally stupid about how much he truly knew. Given the sheer amount of passion he had for ancient runes and their strength over more modern ones, Gerard’s knowledge far surpassed other scholars who had been enticed away by other facets of the subject. No one else could help Frank the way that he could. The last thing Gerard wanted was for something horrible to happen to Frank, something like what had happened to his mother, and for it to come out that he’d tried to ask Gerard for help. He felt guilty about it already and it hadn’t even happened yet.

It would be irresponsible of him to refuse, it really would. Gerard was nothing if not responsible. Sometimes. When it counted.

When Gerard sighed, he could tell by the look on Frank’s face that he already knew he’d won.

“Alright, fine.”

“Perfect.”

“You win.”

“I know.” Frank was beaming. Gerard tried not to let on how much he loved and hated that look in equal measure. It was just so ridiculously self-assured; Gerard didn’t think he’d ever felt that about anything in his life, but here was Frank, feeling it in the middle of a conversation with someone he barely knew.

Frank raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms.

“So, Professor —”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“Right. Okay. So, what do I call you?”

“Gerard is fine.”

“Gerard.” Frank repeated it like he was finding the way it fit in his mouth, the way it oriented itself around his tongue, and Gerard swallowed. “Where do we start?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hi there, how’s it going? Hope you’re well. If you’re just now reading this fic for the first time, welcome, and if you’ve been reading for longer, thanks for coming through though it’s been awhile since I’ve updated. I always say that, you probably know how not quick I am by now, I think. I’m sure it would surprise no one that my family called me ‘speedy’ most ironically while I was growing up. Not much to say here. I’m already at work on the next chapter so I hope it comes sooner rather than later. As always, comment or question over on [tumblr](http://mousefrnk.tumblr.com/) if you feel so inclined. Thanks to [Cat](http://softfrnk.tumblr.com/), [Alex](http://bleakweekend.tumblr.com/), and Lindsey for beta-ing this one. I love them all so much.  
> P.S. It's been over a year since this fic was started! Thanks to everyone who has been reading since then. I love you all.


	10. Some Peace and Quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard takes Frank to the library where absolutely positively _nothing_ weird happens.

It was one thing for Gerard to agree to help Frank, but getting started was another story. He supposed it was like any other research project, but there was an attainable goal here, and it wasn’t just hypothetical. At the very least, Frank’s emotional well-being was at stake, and at the most, his entire life. Getting it wrong would be disastrous — or could be. The rational part of his brain kept reminding him that it was a risk and not a guarantee of failure, but Gerard was never very good at listening to the rational part of his brain.

Still, Frank was excited to get started almost immediately, though Gerard could understand why that was. He'd only been trapped in a cycle of feeling since before he was even conscious of it, and a potential solution was being dangled right in front of him with Gerard’s fear being the only obstacle. Frank had overcome much more serious obstacles, and Gerard lived in fear of that too, of the day when Frank's determination was turned in his direction. 

It was only a matter of time. 

Even if Gerard had known where to start, Frank’s excitement would have tempered him. He wasn’t really the type to rush into a project; his passion for subjects was more slow burn than quick flame. 

He was well-aware of what could happen if he acted without thinking, at least when it came to magic that he didn’t understand.

Still, he knew he had to start somewhere and it wasn’t as if he could ignore Frank showing up every day. He had moved on from waiting in the lobby of the building to going up to Gerard’s office after he got off of his shifts at the coffee cart. 

Gerard kept rushing out of his office whenever he saw Frank outside, making some excuse as he hurried away. He said that preparing would take time, that he needed to do some research ahead of time to figure out where to start. Frank always stood there as Gerard ran off, looking defeated and seemingly frozen with his disappointment, like he hoped that between there and the stairs at the end of the hallway, Gerard would change his mind. 

On some level, Gerard knew he was being cruel. Frank’s hopeful expression sank each time Gerard hurried away, leaving him standing there holding whatever food and drink he’d brought as a peace-offering. 

The thing was, Gerard was afraid, and fear was more potent than his desire to be kind.

Almost two weeks after he’d actually agreed to help Frank, he seemed to realize that he’d waited long enough. It wasn’t just one thing, there was no catalyst that changed his mind, and he supposed he was just tired of seeing the sunken set of Frank’s shoulders as he pushed past him again, running away. Something made him turn around to Frank as he hurried backwards, only barely avoiding tripping over his feet as he continued to walk backwards. Gerard was anything but graceful. 

“Monday. We’ll start Monday.”

Frank’s face had never turned from Gerard as he moved further down the hall, and Gerard watched as it lit up, Frank’s grin as bright as he had ever seen it. The image of Frank’s expression burned through Gerard’s thoughts all weekend.

By the time he went up to campus on Monday, he had a plan, or at least a vague inkling of one. He would start by pouring over books, anything even vaguely mentioning empaths or protection runes. Gerard refused to start actually practicing magic if he didn’t know what exactly he was dealing with. His books wouldn’t exactly be enough, but there was a slightly bigger selection in the school library, despite the diminishing ancient runes budget.

He made it through classes and waited in his office until he heard a knock that could only be Frank. There were no office hours scheduled that afternoon, and all of his own grad students had enough sense to leave him alone lest he assign them more work to do.

He called for Frank to come in and the grad student pushed the door open, his steps into the room almost uncertain. Gerard immediately recognized it, realizing it was probably on account of his own hesitation to even begin. He wondered if Frank felt that making the wrong move would cause Gerard to shy away like a deer. 

“Hey there.” Frank flashed a smile in his direction as Gerard stood up to gather his things, and the smile faltered a little. “Are we not… I thought you said today?”

Gerard couldn’t help the wave of guilt that washed over him at how quickly Frank assumed disappointment.

“Oh, we are. Just not here. We have to go to the library.”

Frank looked around the room where bookshelves covered nearly every wall from the floor to ceiling, and each shelf was so full it would be difficult to find a place for new books.

“Wait, there are books you don’t have in here already?”

Gerard, busy with slinging his packed bag over his shoulder, thought about the fact that only that morning he’d safely stowed the coffee cups in the bottom drawer of his desk to avoid any unnecessary questioning. He wasn’t really sure he could deal with more of Frank’s ‘teasing’ when his nerves were already frayed. He ignored Frank’s question and tucked his coat over the top of his bag.

“Let’s go. We’ve only got a few hours before the library closes and we might not even find anything that’s remotely relevant, so we should really—”

“A few hours?” Frank’s hand clenched around the paper bag in his hand, making it crinkle. “If there’s that much to look through, there should be an easy solution somewhere, right?”

Gerard paused, head turning to look at Frank for real for the first time since he’d entered his office. He wasn’t sure if it was nerves or disrespect, but Frank was taking this awfully lightly for someone whose life hung delicately in the balance between Gerard doing a good job and failing. 

“Come in here for a second and close the door.”

As Frank took a step further into the room and shut the door behind him, Gerard leaned back against the desk, crossing both arms in front of his chest. Frank turned back to look at him, one eyebrow raised like he was expecting a lecture, and Gerard sighed.

“Look. I know I’ve had my hesitations about this.” He ignored the scoff from Frank, who seemed to realize how disrespectful it was to scoff at someone he wanted to help him, and brought one hand up to cover his mouth. He almost made it look natural. “I have my reasons. You don’t have to care about them, but you do have to trust me.”

Frank looked puzzled by this, but he didn’t interrupt.

“Bad things can happen if you mess with magic that you don’t understand, and I don’t understand this at all. Yes, it is vaguely related to my area of research, but I’ve never actually dealt with any emotional magics. I’m not exactly, uh…” He faltered for a moment, not really sure how to finish that sentence. 

“Good with emotion?”

Gerard hadn’t realized he’d looked away, but he made eye contact again as Frank finished the sentence for him, simply nodding.

“Yeah, I’d gathered, funny enough.”

Gerard frowned at the jab but Frank didn’t let him wallow in it.

“People who feel a lot usually are. There’s just so many feelings they get overwhelmed.” There was that gesture again, one of Frank’s dark brows cocking up and calling attention to the brightness of his eyes. “Trust me. I would know.”

“Not really sure I feel a lot.” 

“Oh, you do. You’re kind of, y’know. Sensitive.”

No one had ever described Gerard as sensitive, except for maybe Mikey. He conveniently ignored the fact that Mikey knew him better than anyone. Still, it made Gerard shifty that the attention was on him, and he turned it back to the conversation at hand.

“I just need to get any kind of basis for this. I will feel immensely better about it if I have academic texts to back it up. Anything to do with empaths, even rumors of them, anything to do with telepathy. Emotions in general.”

Frank’s other eyebrow had risen to meet the first one, but when he spoke, his words didn’t contain the protest that Gerard was expecting.

“So. The library?”

Gerard nodded, and Frank’s answering grin nearly broke his face.

“At least I brought snacks.”

Ten minutes later, Gerard was holding open the library door for Frank to enter. He couldn’t help but watch Frank’s body language carefully to see how comfortable he was with being there. People tended to be either really familiar with the library or so unfamiliar that they acted like they were on a different planet. Frank was a grad student, so Gerard wasn’t surprised when he seemed pretty at ease, though he did turn around and wait for Gerard to lead him wherever they were going. 

Without a word, Gerard headed down the stairs off to the left, his head turned back slightly to make sure Frank was following him. Though they were on the ground floor, they went down the stairs until they’d reached the basement. 

“I usually go to, you know, the engineering section,” Frank said in a hushed tone even though it was late enough in the day that there weren’t many people around for them to distract. Even then, few people spent longer in the basement of the library than they absolutely had to.

Gerard simply nodded, pointing to the sign on the wall of the stairwell that read “ANCIENT RUNES, HISTORY” and walked through the door to the stacks. 

The school had seen fit to move the ancient runes to the basement when the library had been remodeled back in Gerard’s sophomore year. The friendlier, more inviting subjects like literature and language and magical ethics occupied the upper floors, which were walled with mostly windows. Then were the hard sciences, earth magic and physics and alchemy (probably where Frank spent his time), and then the ground floor, which mostly filled with study rooms and computers. History and all other ancient topics were on the very bottom floor, as far away from the sunlight as they could get.

“They don’t like us boring folk to see the light of day.”

Frank laughed at that, even though Gerard was only half-kidding. He was pretty certain that the Dean of his own department had been on the committee for the library remodel and had somehow been responsible for relocating her least favorite subjects to the basement. 

Gerard tried not to hate the Dean — he tried not to hate anybody in general. She was just so obviously rooting against him and the Ancient Runes department that he couldn’t really help himself. 

He might have reserved a study room, but they weren’t hard to find, at least on that floor. There was no one around that he could see, which was pretty standard. Gerard simply walked into an empty room and set his bag down. Frank followed suit, watching Gerard unpack his things. 

“So, what now? Do we just go through all the books down here and try to find something that might relate?”

Gerard frowned and looked at Frank. “No, of course not. Haven’t you ever done a research project?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s a little different with my things. All the academic texts mention each other, so I know where to look next, and there’s more math and less actual books involved.”

Gerard hummed, nodding in understanding. 

“I did a bit of a search online, just to get us started. Can’t really look for something if you’re completely in the dark.”

He flipped open his notebook to where he’d already jotted down a massive list of books he thought might be useful. While his handwriting was messy and difficult to read, the list was split up into sections by subject in some attempt at organization.

Frank’s eyes grew wide at the sheer amount of books on the list. Before he could comment on it, Gerard shook his head. 

“They probably won’t all be helpful, but some of them will, hopefully. Same thing with your texts, though. Ideally if they’re not really relevant, they’ll point us in the direction of something that is.” 

Frank nodded, pulling out his own notebook and a pen. He circled half of the list, then copied down the call numbers before handing Gerard’s notes back. Gerard glanced down at Frank’s book and saw that the grad student’s handwriting was nearly as bad as his own.

“Alright, I’ll go find these, and then we can meet back here and start going through them.”

Gerard wasn’t really sure when Frank had taken over the project, and he felt a little put off by it. Before he could say anything about it, Frank was hurrying out of the room. Looking down at what was left of his list, he found that Frank had taken the subjects that were scattered throughout the upper stories, which was just as well. Despite the basement lacking any natural lighting, Gerard had spent so much time there that it felt familiar and almost like home, and he was glad he got to stay there.

It took Gerard a good fifteen minutes to find all the books he was looking for despite his familiarity with the stacks. A lot of books weren’t where they were supposed to be, which didn’t surprise him. The library staff didn’t seem to take much care when shelving things down there, and Gerard ended up putting a few books back in the correct place as he searched. Eventually he found every book he was looking for, which would have been a small miracle if he wasn’t one of the few people who ever checked things out of that particular section. 

Gerard’s arms were completely full as he made his way back to the study room, trying to figure out how he was going to open the door without dropping anything. When the door swung open towards him, Gerard was so startled he nearly dropped his armful anyways, but somehow he managed to hold onto everything. 

Turning slightly to the side, he saw that the door hadn’t really opened by itself — instead, Frank was holding it open for him. 

“Woah, you need help with all those?” He took a step towards Gerard, who shook his head.

“No, I got it. I got it.” He carried the precarious stack of books to the table and carefully set them down. Turning to look at Frank, he saw that he was standing next to a similar tower of books. “You were quick.”

“Yeah,” Frank said, smiling and looking down, one hand moving to scratch the back of his head. “I’m kind of good at finding things.” 

“Oh. Like coincidentally good or magically good?” 

Frank shrugged and started playing with the book at the top of his stack. “Both, maybe. I think maybe it has to do with the empath thing, almost like things I’m looking for have different feelings. Or, maybe it has nothing to do with that and I’m just lucky when I’m trying to find something.”

“Or,” Gerard continued where Frank had left off, “maybe you’ve got a multitude of magical talents and it had nothing to do with the fact that you’re an empath. It is possible to be good at multiple things, even if the one is particularly overwhelming.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Frank fanned through the pages, obviously uncomfortable. Gerard wondered if it was because he’d framed Frank’s empathy issue as a blessing and not the burden Frank seemed to see it as. He decided to let it go, moving to sit down in an empty chair and pulling his stack of textbooks closer to him.

For a while, the two of them sat in silence, simply flipping through the books and occasionally making notes. Gerard started to sort the ones he wanted to read further into a separate stack from the ones that needed to be re-shelved, though the second stack was larger by far. Frank seemed to be having similar luck, though Gerard was sorely tempted to look through those, too. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Frank’s research process, he just didn’t know enough about Frank to trust it. Frank seemed to be pretty confident with it though, writing nearly as many notes, so Gerard didn’t double check him. At some point Frank pulled out the snacks, handing Gerard a massive cookie which he managed to eat without getting crumbs everywhere. 

Eventually, they both finished weeding through the stacks they’d collected, which was great timing as the library was set to close within the hour. Frank started to pack up, but Gerard felt bad simply leaving his books on the shelf for the staff to sort through. He knew that they’d probably get put in the wrong section, whereas he would put them back on the shelf with care. After he’d shoved his stuff back into his bag, he carried the stack of books back to the shelves, ignoring the strange look Frank gave him.

Gerard wandered through the stacks returning books to their rightful places, and Frank leaned his side against one of the shelves. 

“So,” Frank started after a few moments of simply watching Gerard at his task, “now that we’ve got all this reading material, what do we do?”

“Well, for starters, we read it.”

Gerard looked up at Frank to see him rolling his eyes, which was a well-deserved reaction. 

“After that. Are we meeting in your office every day to talk about what we’ve found? Like some sort of research book club?”

Gerard shook his head, then paused.

“I don’t know. If I spend too much time in the office, my brother will get suspicious.”

“Aren’t you kind of like… obsessed with your job? Like, isn’t that normal for you academic types?”

Gerard grimaced, mostly because Frank was right. A few months before it wouldn’t have been remotely suspect for Gerard to spend all night in his office. The problem was that there had been an incident when Gerard had lived in his office for three days straight and consumed only coffee the entire time. After that, he had promised Mikey he wouldn’t stay at his office for longer than was normal for an average human. After he explained this to Frank, the shorter man blinked up at him.

“Why can’t you tell him you’re tutoring me or something?”

Gerard sighed. “Won’t work. He knows you’re not in my department, and that you’re a grad student.”

“Oh, you talk about me often, then?” Frank flashed him a sly grin and it was Gerard’s turn to roll his eyes, prompting Frank to shrug. “Just tell him we’re dating.” 

“What? No!” Gerard shook his head and shoved a book onto the shelf just a bit too hard. “I’m not going to tell him we’re dating.”

Frank scowled and Gerard looked away. “Why not? You wouldn’t date me?”

“I don’t date.” Gerard ignored the Mikey-sounding voice in his head that was screaming at him to stop being stupid. “Even if I did, I don’t date students.”

“I’m not even your student.”

“Have you been talking to my brother?”

“What?” The question sounded like a laugh and Gerard just shook his head.

“Never mind.” 

“Look, I don’t care what you tell him, and I don’t care where we meet. We can go to your apartment, or we can come here, but your brother is still probably going to think we’re dating if he knows you’re with me all the time, and you can’t exactly tell him the truth.”

“You don’t think I know that?” Gerard found the place for the last book and stood up, arms crossing over his chest now that they were free. He felt frustrated at the reminder, and he could hear the feeling seeping into his voice. “I know I can’t tell him the truth. I tell him everything, but I can’t tell him this. I’m well aware.”

Frank frowned again, his confusion spread across his face. “Why… are you _mad_ at me?”

“Look, you’re the one who got me into this. You’re the one who dumped your truth on me and never even gave me the option to not hear it.”

“You didn’t have to agree to help me.” After the sheer effort that Frank had put into convincing Gerard to help him, the statement was so ridiculous that Gerard had to laugh.

“Oh yes, I did. Did you think I could turn down the whole _please keep me from feeling everything and blowing up_ sad-eyed routine you gave me? I’m not immune to feeling, Frank. Maybe I don’t feel as strongly as you, and maybe I don’t feel everyone else’s feelings, but —”

The rest of Gerard’s words, the ones about not being a complete monster, were lost behind Frank’s hand. Gerard didn’t even understand what had happened. All he knew was that Frank had put his hand over Gerard’s mouth to stop him from speaking and then pushed him against the shelf he’d been standing next to. He could feel books digging into his back, but he couldn’t shift away from them as Frank was standing right in front of him, so close that his chest was pressed against Gerard’s.

“Shhh,” Frank muttered, not that Gerard could say anything with the hand pressed to his mouth. At first, Gerard couldn’t hear anything, but then there was the soft sound of shoes on the floor just a few rows down. It was probably one of the staff members checking the stacks to make sure no one got locked in, but Gerard hadn’t exactly been whispering because he thought they had been alone.

Gerard wasn’t completely sure how the secrecy swear worked (even though he should have been), but he was pretty certain that if he died because he broke it, he wouldn’t be able to make a case that he’d only spilled Frank’s secret on accident. 

He had looked up towards the noise as he heard it, and as it hit him how close the call had been, Gerard looked back at Frank. The other man still had his head turned to the sound, trying to hear it. 

Gerard had never been this close to Frank, especially not with this much body contact. Frank’s torso was flush against his own, his palm pressed to Gerard’s half-open mouth. He could see the tendons in Frank’s neck as he shifted his head further towards the sound, could feel his chest expanding each time he took a breath.

Aside from his brother and his grandmother and the one time someone had shoved him and Frank into each other at the club, he didn’t think he’d been so physically close to someone in months.  

He felt overwhelmed by the proximity, by the feeling of another person pressed against him. Gerard was human, and Frank was beautiful, if a bit mouthy. He wasn’t being mouthy now, though, and that thought drew Gerard’s attention to his mouth, hanging slightly open as he concentrated on listening. Gerard held his breath and tried to think of anything but what he was actually thinking. 

Frank’s head snapped back to face him, his perplexed expression reminding Gerard of the reason they had avoided contact up until that moment. Gerard hadn’t considered the fact that Frank was an empath, that on at least some level, Frank could probably feel everything he was feeling. He couldn’t help but panic, the shock of being pushed against a shelf clearing as the shock of Frank intimately knowing his feelings took over.

His hands moved finally, his arms uncrossing to push Frank away, doing his best to only touch him where there would be no skin to skin contact. Before Frank could say anything, Gerard pushed past him and rushed towards the stairwell. He didn’t pass any staff members — they had probably given up their cursory search and returned to the ground floor, assuming the basement floor was empty.

Gerard was so unnerved that he left the library without checking out the books he’d meant to, and by the time he doubled back to pick them up, the lights were off and the doors were locked. He went home, empty-handed and completely confused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three months isn’t… bad, right? Like on the list of how long updates have taken me in the past, this is right in the middle. Not the best, but not the worst (sorry about that one time I made you wait a whole seven months). This chapter took me a long time because I know what’s left to write, but I wasn’t sure how to start the next part. I figured it out eventually, and I hope the next update comes more quickly. Thanks as always for sticking with me, welcome if you’re a new reader. Feel free to leave kudos or comments if you feel so inclined, or come bug me about the next update on [my tumblr](http://mousefrnk.tumblr.com/). All my love!  
> P.S. Thanks for [my wife](http://walktooblivion.tumblr.com/) and [Alex](http://bleakweekend.tumblr.com/) for beta-ing this one. I owe you both ice cream.


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